Notice the museum galleries filling the basement and first floor of the California State Capitol here in Sacramento. The whole building can be considered a museum, but the heart of the Capitol Museum is in the basement and first floor of the original section. Downstairs you’ll find the tour office, B‑27, a small theater showing several short films on the history of the Capitol, the gift shop, and the Arthur Mathews mural titled “History of California.
On the first floor you can tour restored historic offices once used by the secretary of state, the treasurer, and the governor of California, and explore two rotating exhibit rooms. This building has been the home of the California State Legislature since 1869, and the State Capitol Museum has been part of the California State Parks system since 1982. From 1883 to 2020, the center of the rotunda housed the marble statue Columbus’ Last Appeal to Queen Isabella, sculpted by Larkin Mead and given to California by banker and philanthropist Darius Ogden Mills.
Notice the rotunda rising above and the grounds framing this historic Capitol just beyond the entrance.