On March 6, 1909, The New York Times ran an obituary for Elijah E. Myers, who had died the day before. “Myers,” the author wrote, was “known as an architect and the designer of a number of State Capitols and public buildings.” 

In fact, Myers designed five Capitols – more than any other architect in American history. His commissions also included a dozen courthouses, three major city halls, churches, asylums, hospitals, libraries, jails, storefronts, and private residences. No other American architect did so much to shape the buildings in which our governments operate, and our collective image of what a capitol should look like.  

Talented, egotistical, ambitious, charming, difficult, and litigious, Myers embodied America’s Gilded Age. Learn about his fantastic rise to prominence, his subsequent fall from grace, and ongoing efforts to preserve his surviving structures.