Maryland State House

The Maryland State House on State Circle in Annapolis is the oldest state capitol in the United States still in continuous legislative use, dating to construction begun in 1772 on the site of two earlier buildings. For eight months between November 1783 and August 1784, it served as the national capitol — the period during which the Continental Congress ratified the Treaty of Paris ending the Revolutionary War, and George Washington resigned his military commission before Congress in the Old Senate Chamber on December 23, 1783. The building's most distinctive feature is the largest wooden dome in the United States constructed without nails, completed in 1788 using mortise-and-tenon joinery and visible from every approach to downtown Annapolis. Its towering copper-sheathed silhouette dominates the historic district's roofline. Visitors enter through the main lobby, where Maryland's original colonial charter and other founding documents are displayed, then proceed to the Old Senate Chamber — the ornate room where Washington's resignation took place, still furnished with period chairs and a dais that convey the weight of the occasion. The original lighting fixtures, wallpaper patterns, and speaker's dais reproduce the 1783 configuration. The active legislative chambers of the modern House of Delegates and State Senate are housed in an 1828 annex connected to the original building; visitors during the January-through-April legislative session can observe floor proceedings from public galleries. The building exterior, viewed from State Circle, reveals the original 18th-century red brick main block topped by the wooden dome, with the State House grounds containing a memorial to Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court justice, who grew up in Annapolis. Admission and guided docent tours are free; tours depart from the lobby several times daily.