Maine is abbreviated as ME or Me. It was admitted to statehood in Before statehood, Maine was known as the District of Maine and was part of Massachusetts. The current governor and head of Maine state is Paul LePage.
Maine state has no official language. These counties are also the political jurisdictions of Maine state. The largest county is Aroostook with an area of 6, square kilometers. The capital city of Maine is Augusta. Portland is the largest city in Maine with a population of 66, people as of In , Augusta became the shire town of the newly formed Kennebec County.
In , the town was designated the capital of Maine, which had entered the union in as the 23rd state. The Maine Legislature met here for the first time in January, Augusta was chartered as a city in In addition to its governmental roles, Augusta has been, through the years, a frontier trading place, an inland shipping port, and a center for publishing and manufacturing. If you would like to learn more about the history of Augusta and the region, consider a visit to the Fort Western Museum inside the main building on the orginal historic site.
Visiting hours for Fort Western can be found on this website. The modest two-story federal style building was used by state government until The land for the State House and State grounds, containing thirty-four acres extending from the old Hallowell road to the Kennebec River, was chosen by the Governor and a Commission after careful consideration of various sites on both sides of the river.
A group of Augusta owners deeded the land to the State for the sum of ten dollars. It took three years to complete. Construction was of granite mined from Hallowell quarries and the stone was hauled by oxen to Augusta. The new candidate for the capital city was a small settlement located ninety miles northwest of Milledgeville, near the Chattahoochee River in DeKalb County.
The site was part of a large area ceded to Georgia by the Creeks in In December , the Georgia legislature chartered the Western and Atlantic Railroad to connect the Chattahoochee and Tennessee rivers. By construction on the railroad had begun, and soon the collection of stores and shacks supplying the railroad builders from the southern end of the line was known as Terminus. In December the legislature incorporated Marthasville. Some residents and workers objected to a frontier railroad town bearing such a feminine name, however, so the name Atlanta based on the Western and Atlantic Railroad was proposed.
Atlanta was soon to vie for consideration as the state capital, in part due to its rapid growth and its status as the rail center of Georgia. The first legislative proposal to make Atlanta the capital came in December , but the General Assembly defeated the measure by a vote.
Seven years later, Atlanta proponents succeeded in getting lawmakers to place the proposal before the electorate. In the general election, the statewide tally was 49, for staying in Milledgeville; 29, for moving to Atlanta; and 3, for moving to Macon. Sherman approached the city. Sherman spared the capitol from burning, but the building was ransacked by Union troops. With Union forces in control of Milledgeville, the state government fled to various other locations.
In November the governor, Joseph E. He took refuge at his plantation in Cordele but was back in Milledgeville by December. In May , following the surrender of the Confederate army to the Union, Governor Brown called the legislature to convene later that month in Milledgeville at the statehouse, but he was arrested by Union troops, and the legislature did not meet.
Subsequently, Union troops took charge of state government in Georgia. A new constitution was adopted, elections were held, and in December , the legislature met at the Milledgeville capitol. In the U. Congress assumed control of Reconstruction efforts in the South, with Georgia and other southern states again placed under military authority. Major General John Pope was placed in command of Georgia on April 1, , and shortly afterward took up his duties in Atlanta.
A new constitutional convention was called for the state, and General Pope ordered the convention to assemble in Atlanta, reportedly because Milledgeville innkeepers had proclaimed that Black delegates would not be welcome in their inns. The convention met in Atlanta from December to March In February , the Atlanta City Council held a special meeting to frame a formal proposal to the constitutional convention.
Additionally, city officials offered the twenty-five-acre fairground or the choice of any unoccupied ten acres in the city for a state capitol. Georgia now had a new capital—its fifth in less than a century. Though severely damaged by fire in , the building was rebuilt and continues to be used by the school today.
In the Old Capitol was restored. And in , it once again served as the state capitol—although only for a day.
To recognize the th anniversary of representative government in Georgia, Governor Roy Barnes addressed a joint session of the General Assembly in the Old Capitol. On June 30, , a train of sixteen railcars left Atlanta for Milledgeville with an order from the provisional governor to bring back the statehouse furniture and furnishings. Parker in The portraits of Oglethorpe and Lafayette had hung in the house chamber, while those of Washington and Jefferson had adorned the senate chamber.
Today, these paintings hang in the capitol rotunda and represent some of the few surviving artifacts from the Milledgeville capitol. The legislature chose the latter. In the Atlanta Opera House and Building Association had acquired the southwest corner of Marietta Street and Forsyth Street and begun construction of a five-story opera house.
Within two months Kimball and his brother, H. Kimball, were promoting the idea of completing the building and outfitting it for use by the legislature, with the Kimballs promising to have it ready by January 1, At the end of the five years, the legislature would either purchase the building or authorize the erection of a new statehouse at another location.
By January the new building—which would serve as the state capitol for the next two decades—was ready for occupation by the state legislature. The convention decided that the location of the capital should be kept out of the new constitution, but it passed an ordinance declaring that, at the next general election, voters of the state would decide between Atlanta and Milledgeville.
Soon a spirited competition developed between the two cities over which should be the site of the state capital. More than a million circulars concerning the Milledgeville-Atlanta battle were sent out in , with nearly every Georgia newspaper taking a position on the issue. Speeches were made across the state, with Milledgeville supporters associating Atlanta with the abuses of Reconstruction and arguing that the temptations of the big city were too great for members of the legislature.
Additionally, Milledgeville supporters pointed to the Old Capitol Building awaiting the return of the state government, whereas new facilities would have to be constructed if the capital remained in Atlanta.
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