The occasionally lighter side of the state Capitol and those who wander within.

Today, Capitol M salutes Darren Thornberry.

Thornberry is a senior legislative editor for the Office of Legislative Legal Services , which means he edits bills, resolutions, amendments and the like. In his spare time, he’s a freelance writer and keeps his eye on state Capitol history.

In a post on the OLLS blog Thursday, he noted that the first time the Colorado General Assembly convened in the chambers of the state Capitol  was Jan. 2, 1895, making Thursday the state Legislature’s 125th year of meeting in the Capitol. Construction began in 1889; the building opened in November of 1894. The Capitol, however, wasn’t fully finished until 1903. “Imagine the deafening din of hammers and trowels while trying to debate on the chamber floors. Just getting here from far flung Trinidad, Leadville, or Ouray would have been a feat,” Thornberry wrote.

The state Capitol’s location went through several iterations while Colorado was still a territory and before statehood in 1876, including Golden, Colorado City and Denver. Colorado voters decided to make Denver the permanent seat of government in 1881. 

As to that first opening day in 1895, some of the pomp and circumstance bears little resemblance to the way business is done now. For example, the chief clerk of the house and secretary of the Senate were both lawmakers, not employees of the General Assembly as is the case today.

Thornberry wrote that according to the Senate Journal for opening day, “Lt. Gov. David H. Nichols and Asst. Secretary of the Ninth General Assembly, Stanley Stokes, called the Senate to order (exact time unknown) and Rev. Thomas Uzzell gave the invocation. Chief Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court, Charles Hayt, administered the oath to 16 newly elected senators.” The Senate president from 1895 to 1898 was farmer, cattleman and banker Jared Brush, for whom the town of Brush, in Morgan County, is named.

The House convened at noon that day, “led by Chief Clerk of the Ninth General Assembly John R. Wallingford, followed by a prayer by Prof. T.N. Haskell. Among the day’s business was nominating a clerk pro tempore, and the body unanimously voted for Wallingford,” the journal said. Arthur Lucas Humphrey of El Paso County, a “master mechanic” in the railroad industry, was elected Speaker of the House.

Among the House committees that met in that first year in the Capitol: penitentiary, printing, roads and bridges, public buildings, fees and salaries, counties and county lines (sure to be a barn-burner of a discussion point back then), and state canals & reservoirs.

Senate committees carried names like privileges and elections; stock; supplies and expenditures; railroads and corporations; and mines and mining.

It also wasn’t exactly a two-party system back then, either. In addition to now-standard party affiliations (Democrat and Republican) the General Assembly had representatives from the Populist Party, National Silver Republicans and perhaps the most interesting, the Teller Silver Republican Party. 

The Teller Silver Republican Party’s most notable House representative — whose claim to fame was making the columbine Colorado’s state flower — was a woman who wasn’t even eligible to vote when she was elected in 1898. Dr. Mary Frye Barry of Pueblo, who served in the 1899-1900 sessions, was a physician. According to “Her Hat Was in the Ring,” in addition to the bill on columbines, Barry also carried legislation on “comprehensive education mandated for children between 8- and 14-years-old; kindergarten classes included in public schools; creation of county high schools; creation of a library commission; a law protecting sewing machines, bicycles, and other articles of the poor from seizure; a mechanic’s lien law; and protection for the rights of laborers.”

The Populist Party had more members in the 1895 session than Democrats had, although state records showed that many members of the General Assembly moved from one party to another more often than you’d think. Sen. Casimiro Barela of Las Animas County was a member of three political parties (Democrat, Republican and Populist) during the course of his 40 years in the General Assembly, from 1876 to 1916. That, by the way, ties him for first place for longest service with Sen. Sam Tesitore Taylor of Walsenburg, who served from 1935 to 1974.

*Correction to note that Sen. Taylor was from Walsenburg.