Just north of Capitol Avenue and south of Bushnell Park in Hartford, the Connecticut State Capitol is the building in front of you. From this spot you can feel the building’s role in state life: it houses the Connecticut General Assembly — the upper house, the State Senate, and the lower house, the House of Representatives — and the office of the Governor of the State of Connecticut. This is the third capitol building for Connecticut since the American Revolution, a consequence of a long history in which the General Assembly met alternately in Hartford and New Haven since before the American Revolution.
In Hartford those sessions had taken place in the Old State House designed in 1792 by Charles Bulfinch; in New Haven they met in a State House designed in 1827 by Ithiel Town. After the Civil War the competing plan began to falter, Hartford and New Haven both vying to be the sole state capital, and Hartford ultimately won, prompting the General Assembly to authorize a million dollar project to establish one central capitol. Notice the Connecticut Supreme Court building across Capitol Avenue, built between 1908 and 1910, with Bushnell Park just beyond.