continue with an interview. a woman ended up on the front page of the post. frenchmanlling at with chins tucked in. that photograph ran everywhere in the world. i am convinced that story held me get a job at the post. >> american history tv, all weekend, every weekend, only on c-span3. >> we are at the south dakota state capital in pierre, where we are learning more about the history of the city. the building is an example of renaissance architecture. up next, we take you inside for a tour and to learn why pierre was chosen as the state capital.

mr. venhuizen: pierre is a pretty small town as far as capitals go. about 13,000 people. fort pierre is another 2500 people. between the two, probably 15,000 people. not only is it small, but it is pretty remote. it was selected as the state capital because it is in the middle of the state. but it is really a two or two and a half hour drive from any other sizable town in the state. that presents challenges. people have to drive quite a distance for meetings or two participate in the process. they can also be a challenge to attract people to the city to work for state government. pierre is very much a company town. the state is by far the largest employer and it really dominates the economy here. when dakota territory was created in 1862, the original territorial capital was in

yankton, in the far southeast corner of the territory. the territory was both north and south dakota. as the territory was settled, three distinct geographic areas emerged. there was yankton near sioux falls. you had a settlement in north dakota. from fargo to bismarck, there were a lot of big wheat farms called bonanza farms. and after the gold rush, there was settlement in the black hills. deadwood is very famous and rapid city, as well. it became more and more clear that yankton was not tenable long-term is the capital. the move of the territorial capital was engineered to

individual that south dakota ends consider corrupt. he had a lot of business there. that caused a rift between the northern and southern parts of the state. by that point, the capital was in bismarck, and that became the capital of north dakota. yankton was not a tenable option for south dakota. there were probably eight or 10 cities that contended to be capital. pierre won that vote on the strength of its position almost perfectly in the center of south dakota. the western part of the state was almost completely unsettled by european settlers. there were native americans in that part of the state. pierre's claim to be centrally

a little hollow because it was to the west of where most people were. but it won the initial vote. there was a second vote in 1890. pierre won that vote also. huron,ated here on -- maybe an hour and a half from here. a final vote was held in 1904 and pierre defeated mitchell for the final time. that was when it became capital once and for all. the construction of this capital building, planning for it began shortly after that. that is why our capital building was not built until 1908-1910. there were a few statements made by the construction of this building. some unwittingly. i think every state capital is built to give a sense of importance and permanence and especially to have an imposing structure like this built in a

town like pierre, which was not a big town even at that time, it would have stood out and made a statement about our confidence in our state and our future. construction was set back by about a year because of a dispute over the use of out-of-state stone. it is an interesting story. when they sought the bids for this stone to build the structure, the low bids all came in from other states including michigan and indiana. it is interesting, because that is kind of an analogy for where a lot of the early settlement came from. most of our early governors came from the great lakes states. that is where a lot of the settlement came from. this capital was built with stone almost exclusively from other states. the only south dakota stone is in the foundation. there was a lawsuit that attempted to force the building to be built entirely with south dakota stone. we have quarries in sioux falls.

that case was not successful. the decision was to go with the low bid. right now, we are in the rotunda of the capital. looking around the rotunda a little bit, there are 4 wells for statues. those wells stood empty until the state's centennial in 1989 , and in 1989, the state by theioned four statues sculpture who is now -- by a sculptor who is now our artist laureate. are fourok up, there corner areas with flags. flags, a flight

from the south dakota territory. a flag from the united states and flags for spain and france because of a controlled this territory at different times and each corner has, one corner has a white flag and black and one yellow and one red. those are the native american colors to represent the four directions of the compass. above those are paintings of goddesses that represent agriculture, livestock, industry and family. those are original to the building. a lot of symbolism in the rotunda. this is the governor's reception room. it was in the original governor's office. today, it enjoins the governor's office and the room the governor uses to greet guests and host small receptions and very often bill signing ceremonies. it was the first room restored

when the state capital restoration efforts began in 1976. the state capital restoration began with the u.s. centennial in 1976 and ended around 1989. this was the first room restored good -- room restored. prior to that, it had a drop ceiling and institutional green paint and a really incredible to see how bad it a look. trying to understand how some time in our history, people felt it was an improvement over what this looks like. the real controversy that existed in this room since it was created was a large mural on the wall behind me called "progress of south dakota." it portrayed an angel leading the european settlers into the territory, really trampling over the native american inhabitants who seemed to be kind of lying

on the ground and being trampled by the settlers. symbolic in some ways, but obviously, pretty controversial as our views of history have changed. it was a controversy for 20 or 30 years in south dakota. back in the 1970's, the governor at that time attempted to resolve it by retitling the name "only from our mistakes can we learn." that did not really satisfy anyone. in the 1980's, another governor hung a curtain over it aired but it had gotten so much news coverage that everybody who visited wanted to see it and they would always open the curtain to show it to people. it did not serve any function. about 20 years ago, the governor at that time decided although the mural should be preserved , and it is painted directly on

the wall and could not be removed, there is a false wall built out and build to match the rest of the walls. the mural is behind the sheet rock, it is not visible to see. we have a picture of it because occasionally visitors are aware and want to see what it looks like. that is how the issue was dealt with. maybe not the perfect answer but sometimes in those situations, there is no perfect answer. this is a statue of general william henry harrison beadle, he was a brigadier general and the civil war and came to the dakota territory after he was appointed by president grant to be the surveyor general and spent the rest of his life here. he is a very important figure in our early history, particularly because of his advocacy for the school land concept.

he thought very strongly that we needed to endow the operation of and pushedsystem, for system that pushed for one in each township through the state that would be owned by the state and trust for the benefit of the schools in that township. over time, those parcels of land have been slopped into larger areas, and they are not all necessarily the same lands. but to this day, we have the schools public land trust that operates to produce money for our school system. this was an innovative idea and one that caught on and other states that became states around the same time, north dakota, montana, wyoming, washington , all copied south dakota's school public lands provision. general beadle when the u.s. capitol invited each state to

statuary statues to hall in washington, general beadle was the first selected from south dakota. this is the twin of the statue at a u.s. capitol. i have been coming to the capital my whole life, my grandpa served in the state senate and i used to visit him as a little kid. we have many school groups who go through the capital every year. one of the things that kids most remember and what they know is the story of these blue tiles on the floor. when the capital was being built, the floor was put in by stonemasons from italy and traditionally the stonemasons are allowed to sign their work somewhere. there were so many that they did not want them to do that. the story is each stone mason given a blue tile to place on the floor. supposedly there are 66 of them through the building. only 55 have ever been found.

if you take a tour of the state capital and with the school group, there is a lot of attention paid to trying to find as many blue tiles as you can while here. i hope when people visit the state capital they see we have a lot of pride in our state and our history. and that they also see where -- seat we are very open about our state capital and our government. the security here is a very light touch. there are no metal detectors. we have extensive hours where people can visit. we get a lot of visitors here from out of state. very often people trying to visit state capitals in all of the states, and they are impressed by how open hours that capital is and how easily you can look around. >> this weekend, we are featuring the history of pierre, south dakota with our cable partners. learn more about pierre and other stops in our cities tour

at c-span.org. you are watching american history tv all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. clear that my impression of right part is having an outsized influence on the 2016 election was an understatement in the extreme. that in fact, including the eitbart was the driving force on the right side. q&a, and author talks about his book on breitbart. >> i've always heard people and continue to talk about it as a hysterical, shadowy machine

for creating offense. 8:00 easternht at on c-span's q&a. on lectures in history, sonoma state university professor laura watt teaches a class on the national park system and the effort to preserve pristine wilderness. she offers that this approach often obscures the way humans interact with the land and talks about her research on the point reyes national seashore, which was designated as a natural park in the 1960's. today we are going to be talking about landscapes and reservation and how preservation unexpectedly changes places we set aside as parks or protected areas. the