Capitol legends: The truth behind Minnesota State Capitol myths

The most common question posed to State Capitol tour guides is, “Where’s the bathroom?”

The next most common questions often have to do with some of the myths and legends that endure in the building’s hallowed halls.

From a cow in the House Gallery to skeletons buried in the basement, Brian Pease, historic site manager of the Minnesota State Capitol, has worked for decades to correct the lingering rumors of the place.

While most are unsubstantiated, many feature “little bits and pieces” of fact, tying them further into the discussions of the building’s history and lore, Pease said. He sat down with Session Daily to talk about some of the most repeated myths, how they came to be, and the glimmers of truth that can be found within them.

Legend: Farmers tipped a cow over the House Gallery railing

An enduring, and entirely unsubstantiated, legend about the Capitol is that farmers tipped an emaciated cow over the railing of the public gallery in the House Chamber during the Great Depression.

During that time, farmers did bring starving livestock to the Capitol grounds to showcase dire farm conditions, but none made it inside.

The legend dates to the Great Depression itself when farmers were said to have thrown rotten vegetables at representatives from the gallery.

These stories lack evidence.

“You would think that there would be a newspaper article,” Pease said.

Over the years, events were conflated and the legend grew “from vegetables to livestock,” Pease said. Farmers throwing vegetables shifted into throwing manure, which eventually became tipping a cow over the railing.

Pease has heard visitors reference the closure of seating in the gallery behind the speaker’s dais as evidence for the rumor — that’s from where the farmers supposedly threw the vegetables. In fact, the space was renovated for offices, rather than as a response to any incident.

Legend: Swastikas in the Rathskeller

The Rathskeller cafeteria is named for the German term “Ratskeller” which refers to a basement tavern or restaurant often located beneath town halls or council houses.

Sitting directly beneath the House Chamber, the term is an apt one for the Capitol’s basement cafeteria.

The ceiling of the Rathskeller features painted vines, scrolls and 29 German sayings, including "Drink, but don't indulge in drinking; speak, but don't pick quarrels" and "Today for money, tomorrow for nothing."

It has been falsely said the ceiling also once sported swastikas which had to be painted over. While it isn’t true, the legend is rooted in real historic events.

Pease cites two impulses for changes over the years: anti-German sentiment during World War I and Prohibition.

In 1917, Minnesota’s 22nd governor, J. A. A. Burnquist, had the Rathskeller’s original stencil designs painted over.

From 1917-1920, Burnquist led the Minnesota Commission of Public Safety, which was tasked with supporting the United States’ war effort. The commission was widely suspicious of German immigrants and would go on to call the Rathskeller a threat to “Americanism,” ordering its German slogans painted over.

The slogans were added back to the ceiling in 1930 but several were changed due to prohibitionists who increasingly chafed against drinking slogans above lawmakers’ heads.

“Better be tipsy than feverish” became “Temperance is a virtue of men,” and “Cheerful disposition and noble wine” became “Cheerful disposition and noble food.”

In 1937, however, the space transitioned from a public restaurant to a cafeteria with serving lines. Due to food being served directly from the Rathskeller, food grease coated the ceiling, requiring it to be repainted “every few years,” hiding the original character beneath plaster and asbestos for the next 60 years, Pease said.

The 1996 Legislature approved a restoration project for the Rathskeller that removed 22 layers of paint over the original stencils, restoring the space to an accurate replica of when it opened in 1905, complete with the original German slogans.

Legend: Easter eggs and Capitol art and architecture mistakes

Be it a six-toed man or a mouse snuck in the edge of a mural, the Capitol’s artwork features a number of “Easter eggs” — a hidden message or image in artwork — which has led to speculation, legend and myth.

One of the most discussed is the alleged two right hands seen in the man in the fourth panel of “Civilization of the Northwest: The American Genius,” found in the northeast corner of the Capitol dome.

Because of the man’s strangely positioned fingers, many have falsely speculated that painter Edward Simmons painted the man with two right hands because of a feud with Capitol architect Cass Gilbert.

Pease attributes the legend to viewers being so far away from the mural to not be able to differentiate the fingers and creating a story to match it.

“It’s a $30,000 mural. You’re not going to do that,” he said.

Another “mistake” is the columns seen in the east and west wings of the Capitol. The columns are built of three different segments of Italian marble and legend has it that the orders from Italy were mismatched requiring the column segments to be intermixed rather than uniform.

“The intention was never to have them match,” said Pease, referencing letters from Gilbert to contractors of the Bulter Ryan Company in 1904 fine-tuning how the columns looked just months before the building was set to open.

“There is no mistake, everything was intended and had purpose,” Pease said.

Other Easter eggs like the six-toed man come down to the whimsy of artists. Polydactyly in paintings is a well-documented occurrence often attributed to an artist intentionally making mistakes to illustrate that only God can create perfection.

Another regular misattribution is the belief that the Capitol’s ground floor south entrance was first used as a stable or carriage house.

Instead, the entrance is “extra space created by the slope of the stairs,” due to the Capitol’s placement on a hill.

Given the space’s low ceilings, a carriage house is “the furthest thing from the truth,” Pease said.

Legend: Workers who died during construction were buried in the Capitol foundation

Six workers died during construction of the Capitol. Five died from falls and one was killed after getting caught in a flywheel of a stone-polishing machine.

These deaths were due to dangerous working conditions and stirred controversy in the state with the June 27, 1903, Minneapolis Journal headline reading, “Deaths Due To Neglect.”

If rumor is to be believed, these workers never left their final job site, being buried in the foundations of the Capitol itself.

This legend is patently false.

“No one is buried here,” Pease said.

In fact, one worker, 25-year-old Felix Arthur, was famously buried in Nelson, Georgia, with a marble grave marker provided by the Georgia Marble Company which supplied marble for the Capitol.

Other workers’ graves can be found in West Bend, Wisconsin, and Maplewood.

This speculation might be, in part, due to the memorial plaque which can be found in the Capitol’s basement.

It memorializes the six workers and was installed in 2017 after a group of Owatonna middle schoolers studying the Capitol’s history pushed for a bill recognizing the workers.

Legend: Kids on the quadriga

One of the most striking symbols of the Capitol is the golden quadriga perched at the base of the dome.

“The Progress of the State” features four horses representing the forces of nature, earth, wind, fire and water, with two women holding their bridles representing agriculture and industry. Atop the quadriga stands “Prosperity” who holds a horn of plenty and staff inscribed with “Minnesota.”

Tour visitors are treated to a view of the quadriga from the roof, but it is commonly said that parents used to set their children up on the backs of the golden horses.

This myth, Pease said, is entirely true.

The Capitol roof used to be entirely open to the public, with visitors able to approach and touch the gold-leafed horses. When the horses were restored in 1994, “anything that had a surface had some graffiti on it,” Pease said. Since then, tours and the public are no longer able to approach the quadriga, but memory of when that wasn’t the case still exists.

“I’ve had people who are in their 70s say, ‘Oh yeah, I remember my dad let me sit on top of the horses,’” Pease said.

Minnesota Myth and History

It isn’t surprising that rumors and legends cling to the Capitol building and grounds. The intricate details of art, architecture and history “just invite the stories,” Pease said.

Keeping the rumor separate from fact, however, is a continual effort from the Minnesota Historical Society, especially in the internet age where photos and stories can reappear year after year, caught on the tides of algorithm.

For Pease, however, the ever-changing tapestry of Capitol legend is a part of the vitality of the space, because after all, “if it’s a good story, it’s hard not to use it.”