Show A New Capitol Fortynine years ago Texas declared her independence from Mexico March 2d is a legal holiday throughout State and was observed at Austin by laying the cornerstone of the new State Capitol The event was celebrated on a grand scale and the procession to Capitol Hill was perhaps the largest ever witnessed in the State Governor Ireland and staff I headed the procession followed by members mem-bers of the Legislature on foot and military mili-tary Masonic and other bodies made uptime up-time concourse The cremony of laying the stone was conducted by the Masonic Grand Lodge of Texas The building is located on a commanding elevation near I the centre of the city in the square originally origi-nally selected for the Capitol of the republic re-public of Texas The style of architecture architec-ture is Corinthian modernly treated and the outline sufficient broken to give the building a majestic appearance Its dimensions at the greatest measurement are 560li feet long by 289 feet wide The building will be three stories in height above the basement besides a central story running from the north to south pediments Of all similar structures I in America it is second in size only to the national Capitol at Washington and is larger and finer than the German rcichstag or the English Eng-lish parliament buildings The provisions provi-sions for the executive legislative judicial judi-cial and other departments are upon a scale in keeping with the mammoth state they represent Over the south entrance jg i the mngnificont triumphal arch while from the centre in majestic grandeur towers the great dome to a height of 250 feet above the basement floor The building is being erected by a capitol capi-tol syndicate headed by C R Farwell and Col Abner Taylor of Chicago These gentlemen with others have undertaken un-dertaken the construction under an agreement agree-ment with the state to receive as their full compensation therefor 3050000 acres of land lying in the counties of Deaf Smith Parmer Casto Lamb Bailey Hockley Dallam Hartley Cochran and Oldham These unorganized counties lie in the extreme northwestern portion of the State being the westerly counties of what is known as the PanHandle country lying on the New Mexican boundary boun-dary This is the famous grazing ground of Texas and these syndicate lands are certain to prove of great value for agricultural agri-cultural purposes not many years hence The building will cost over 5000000 and the syndicate will have paid nearly 2 per acre for their lands The legislature legisla-ture is at present agitating the question of substituting granite for limestone in the construction of the centre walls of the building The supervising architect for the syndicate estimates the substitution would cost the state 735000 The legislative legis-lative capitol committee have agreed to recommend this substitution which if done will make the total cost of the capitol 9000000 |