BOISE (Day 5 - part 3)

The third floor...

The state seal was colorized and updated (modernizing the people) in 1957.

The dome

A small staircase leads from the inner dome into the outer dome.

Public Lounge and Gallery Overflow room

The chambers were closed ... But we did get a peek into the Joint Finance Appropriations Committee room.

The fourth and final floor...

The floors are comprised of grey marble from Alaska, red from Georgia, green from Vermont and black from Italy.

The George Washington statue was carved from a single piece of pine by Charles Ostner, an Austrian immigrant. It took him four years, working at night by candlelight from a postage stamp-sized likeness of the president. It was bronzed and presented to the Idaho Territory in 1869. It was displayed outside until 1934, when it was brought indoors due to weather damage. It was restored and covered with gold leaf in 1966.

A replica of Winged Victory of Samothrace. The original was sculpted about 400 - 300 BC on Samothrace, an island in the Aegean Sea. Lost for centuries, it was rediscovered in 1863 and sent to the Louvre Museum in Paris. In 1949, France sent this copy as a thank you gift for all the help and supplies given after WWII. Each state capitol got a different gift.

Statuary Hall with its barrel ceiling. ... Unfortuntately the galleries were also closed.

Another glimpse outside ... A statue built in 1927 honors Governor Frank Steunenberg, who served Idaho from 1897 to 1900 and was assassinated in 1905.

We wandered over to Freak Alley Gallery... an extensive, outdoor, multi-artist, mural-filled alley. It started in 2002 with just one drawing on a doorway, then expanded over the years. Now, new works of art are added each year.

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