Massachusetts State House

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The state's copper-domed capital building figures in the famous quote that defines the city of Boston.. Overview
It was the State House, not Boston, that Oliver Wendell Holmes called "the hub of the solar system." The Old State House it replaced was no longer considered grand enough for the new republic after the Revolutionary War. In 1798, on John Hancock's former cow pasture, architect Charles Bulfinch erected the new State House (though, in 1802, Paul Revere and Sons was called in to cover the leaky dome in copper).

The Experience
The Grand Staircase takes you one flight up to the newly refurbished House of Representatives chambers. Here hangs the Sacred Cod, the building's best-known piece of art. The four-foot-long fish, hand-carved out of pine, was given by a local merchant named John Rowe as a reminder of the importance of the fish to the state's economy. The carving is older than the State House itself.