A crowd of more than one hundred supporters gathered on January 11, 2007, to mark the beginning of work on the Old Capitol. Governor Haley Barbour, pictured at right, Lieutenant Governor Amy Tuck, Secretary of State Eric Clark, and other dignitaries spoke of the significance of the project to restore the grand building that served as Mississippi’s statehouse from 1839 to 1903.

The Old Capitol is without question the state’s most historic building,” said former governor William F. Winter, president of the MDAH Board of Trustees. “It has stood through war, flood, pestilence, and depression, now serving to remind us of the generational ties that bind us together and the shared experiences that make us one people.”