Is there a connection between our Presidents
and our state capitols with golden domes?

Our Golden Domes

Colorado

image courtesy of
Onetwo1 and Wikipedia

Connecticut

image courtesy of
Catherine Brulotte
Barraclou.com

Georgia

image courtesy of
Mary Ann Sullivan
Bluffton University
and Andreas Eder

Iowa

image courtesy of
Sarah Serendipity
through
Creative Commons

Massachusetts

image courtesy of
Galen R. Frysinger

Nebraska

image courtesy of
Overduebook

New Hampshire

image courtesy of
Roz and Roy Simpson

New Jersey

image courtesy of
Marion Touvel

Vermont

image courtesy of
omerka

West Virginia

image courtesy of
fusion panda

Wyoming

image courtesy of
David Simmons

The Source of the Question
Several visitors to this website have contacted us asking if what they had heard about the honor of a golden state capitol dome was true. Either presented as a tradition or a law, the shared idea was a state must be "connected" with a President in order to be allowed the honor of a golden dome on their state capitol. The connection was stated as either the state produced a President, a President was a citizen of the state, or a President was born in the state. So, does it take a presidential connection for a state to be allowed to have a golden dome?

An Invitation for Possible Contributors
We had no luck finding anything definite on the Internet to answer this question. We did some of our own research and explained that below. Our work is probably adequate, but not being historians puts us in a spot. If anyone would like to contribute support or argument regarding our answer, please contact us. We would be very glad to learn more and add to this page, or correct it, if needed.

The Research
We first researched the possible tradition when we received the first email of this kind. Luckily, that research also covered the other possible presidential connections mentioned in later emails.

The first email proposed a state had to produce a President. The first problem with the idea of a state producing a President is that people move around and more than one state might be thought of as producing such a President. As suspected, research done on The White House website showed many of our Presidents were born in different states than the ones where they lived when they took office. Many also moved shortly after they were born and grew up in another state. For example, the Bushes; George H.W. Bush was born in Massachusetts and George W. Bush was born in Connecticut, and both are known for their political and/or business careers in Texas. So which state(s) should get the credit for producing either one? And while Illinois calls itself the "Land of Lincoln," Lincoln was born in Kentucky and grew up in Indiana before he practiced law and entered politics in Illinois. These are just three of the twenty multi-state Presidents we found.

Our first approach to sorting the information, and it was a lot of information, worked. We read the biography of every President, and to cover all possibilities, we noted all the states where any President was born, grew up, or developed their political career. The result is the following list of 26 states:

Next we listed all the states with golden domes. This part of the research was much easier since it was already done for the other content of this website. The states with golden domes on their capitols are:

Comparing the Lists
How do the two lists differ, and what does the difference mean? There are a lot of states with presidential connections whose capitols do not have golden domes. If a state produced a President but does not have a golden dome, it does not prove or disprove the possible tradition. It just means they chose not to have one. If a state has a golden dome but has not produced a President, the claim of the tradition would have to be suspect. There are two states with golden domes who are apparently not connected to any President.

Our Conclusion
Two states, Colorado and Wyoming, have golden domes on their capitols but do not have presidential connections. If our research is adequate, they prove the claim of a binding law or a valued tradition requiring a state produces a President to have the honor of a golden capitol dome is false.

More Thoughts
In some ways, a tradition of this kind just doesn't make sense. For instance, many capitols were designed and built without a dome at all and probably cannot have one added. They obviously did not plan on having a golden dome in the future and were not concerned with being granted the proposed traditional honor when they chose the design for their capitol.

There are also quite a few states whose domes are stone, which I don't believe is ever gilded, or whose domes are covered with a material that is important to the state and would not be replaced, like Nevada's silver and Montana's copper. So if a state with a domed capitol earned the proposed right to a golden dome in the future, they might not be able to, or might not want to have one anyway. They, too, were not concerned with the proposed traditional honor when they built their capitols.

Granted, if the law or tradition exists, it could have come into being after some of our older capitols and state houses were finished. That, however, would hardly seem fair.

All in all, if there ever was a tradition or law that a state had to have a President come from there in some way for them to be allowed to have a golden dome on their capitol, we believe it has been forgotten or largely ignored.