Michigan has had three capitols since it became a state, but only one remains standing today after fires in the late 1880s destroyed the first two.

Nothing can fully replicate the experience of visiting physical sites where history was made, said Jack Dempsey, the former president of the Michigan Historical Commission and author of "Capitol Park: Historic Heart of Detroit." "They connect so powerfully — more powerfully — than just trying to use your imagination," said Dempsey.

When Michigan’s early capitols went up in flames, Michigan lost a tangible piece of its history. Today, historical markers stand on those sites.

Ask any Michigander what they love about the present-day capitol and a range of answers follows, from the grand Senate Appropriations Committee's meeting room that once served as the Michigan Supreme Court's chamber to the building's cast iron dome. But before Dempsey talked about the interesting architectural details of the Michigan Capitol, he began with a practical response when talking about what makes the Michigan Capitol special. "It's fireproof for one thing," he said.

While those interested in Michigan's capitol history can't explore the chambers and offices where the state's early leaders worked, a tour of the current capitol offers a chance to look at where lawmakers meet today and a window into the state’s past.

Michigan's first state capitol

Michigan's 1835 state constitution named Detroit as the city to serve as the state's seat of government. As they crafted the state's first constitution, the delegates to the convention met in the Greek Revival building completed in 1828 and located in present day Capitol Park, that became Michigan's inaugural capitol.

The designation of Detroit as Michigan's capital was a temporary one. A prolonged debate over where to locate the capitol landed on Lansing, in Ingham County, where state lawmakers still meet today.

For the first twelve legislative sessions in Michigan, beginning in 1835, lawmakers met in Detroit.

Michigan's first state capitol in Detroit.

After serving as the state capitol, the building later served as a school and library. Dempsey said it's hard to know what the interior of the building looked like, but it included spaces for both chambers and some meeting rooms and a steeple that provided a great view and became a kind of tourist attraction.

Michigan's first constitution set 1847 as the year when the state Legislature was required to decide where to permanently locate the state's seat of government.

The topic would come up almost every session, according to Capitol historian Valerie Marvin. Despite some of its advantages, Detroit didn't make the transition from Michigan's temporary capitol to the state government's forever home. Its location along the river made Detroit an easier location to travel to than outstate locations. But it was also seen as a vulnerable because of its proximity to Canada and the memory of the War of 1812 still lingering.

Dozens of cities were floated for the capital designation, but Lansing emerged as the consensus choice. "It'll be fresh, a fresh start in the middle of Michigan," said Dempsey of the thinking behind the location. Marvin said detractors referred to the new home for the capitol as a "howling wilderness."

Land speculator James Seymour advocated for Lansing to become lawmakers' pick for the capitol. Before choosing Lansing, the Michigan House voted on 13 other sites while the Michigan Senate voted 51 times before agreeing to the House's selection, according to the marker on the site.

On March 18, 1847, the governor approved the law locating the capitol to Lansing Township (at the time Lansing wasn't incorporated as a city yet). With the capitol selected, a scramble began to prepare the capitol site where lawmakers would convene just nine months later.

Michigan's second state capitol

The construction contract for the new capitol in Lansing was awarded on June 3, 1847 and the building was completed late that year, according to the historical marker at the site.

Though it was meant to serve as a temporary location, Michigan's second state capitol — derisively dubbed the "old barn" and located where East Allegan Street and South Washington Square intersect today — served as the statehouse for three decades, including during the Civil War. During that time, Michigan's 1850 constitution officially named Lansing the state capitol.

A wooden building erected before a fire department existed in Lansing, the structure fueled concerns it might go up in flames, said Marvin. In 1871, then-Gov. Henry Baldwin sought a new and fireproof capitol. Lawmakers' heeded the call and Baldwin approved legislation to erect a new state capitol.

Michigan's second state capitol in Lansing.

Michigan's third and present-day capitol held its first legislative session in 1879.

On Dec. 16, 1882, Michigan's second capitol burned when the building was used for manufacturing. The state's first capitol would remain standing for about a decade longer until it, too, succumbed to fire on Jan. 27, 1893.

Michigan's third state capitol

Illinois' Elijah E. Myers won the competition to select the architect for the new capitol, which took six years to construct and generally stayed on budget ($1.2 million was approved for the project which ultimately cost $1.4 million at the time). Michigan Capitol's brick walls, ceilings and floor helped protect the building from fire, according to a guide prepared by the Michigan Legislature.

The building was dedicated on Jan. 1, 1879. A band led a procession of former governors to the building, according to a Detroit Free Press article covering the event. At the ceremony, former Michigan Gov. William Greenly addressed the crowd by revisiting the decision to pick Lansing as Michigan's capital, and "he concluded that time had manifested the wisdom of the choice then made," the Free Press article states.

The American flag waves outside the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing on Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2023.

Myers' subsequent capitol projects didn't go as well as his work in Michigan. He was fired from working on the Colorado and Texas capitols, but he still left a legacy as the architect behind the designs of more statehouses than any other and the man who used the nation's capitol in Washington, D.C. as the model.

"It was actually considered to be remarkably scandal-free. I mean this is the Gilded Age. This is an era known for graft and really shoddy public building projects," Marvin said of construction of the Michigan Capitol. In building their own capitols, other states spent a lot of money to use building products native to them, Michigan tried to snag a good deal looking for the best quality materials for the best price, Marvin said.

While the Michigan Capitol frequently hosts students and other visitors to marvel at the building, head to the Michigan Archives for a different kind of tour. The late local historian Orien Austin Jenison's scrapbooks housed in the archives provide a treasure trove of newspaper clippings, commemorative ribbons, letters and more documenting the construction of the Michigan Capitol.

Local historian Orien Austin Jenison's scrapbooks housed in the Michigan Archives provide a treasure trove of newspaper clippings and letters documenting the construction of the Michigan Capitol.

While the cast iron capitol dome draws the eye to the very top of the building, one fellow history buff — Hezekiah G. Wells — raised concerns about what he believed to lay at the bottom of the building in an Oct. 23, 1873, letter to Jenison. "In the year 2500, when a new capitol is being built + some simple minded antiquarian is examining the contents of this corner stone, with its fill of news-papers, he may wonder at the stupidity of his ancestors, in filling a hole with such trash," he wrote.

In another 475 years, he may have his answer.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan’s first 2 capitols went up in flames: The wild, forgotten history you didn’t know