For my next tourist activity in Phoenix, I visited the Arizona State Capitol in the Government Mall neighborhood west of downtown. The Capitol consists of three different buildings—the Capitol Museum (which connects to the Executive Tower), the Senate, and the House of Representatives.

I started in the central Capitol Museum and wove in and out of the many rooms containing many museum exhibits.

The center of the museum had a dome on top, from the structural supports of which there was a chandelier hanging by a long, metallic, wound rod.

After going through the first building, I went to the southern building, home of the Senate.

As you’d expect, my third and final building tour was the northern one, home of the House of Representatives.

Security was tighter in this building for some reason, so I was escorted around by a security guard. I had a nice conversation with him; he is a fan of the Las Vegas Raiders and is looking forward to the new baseball stadium for the Athletics.

Here are some more photos of the museum exhibits taken in the central building.

This is the first Capitol I’ve seen with this large and robust of a museum on-site. I remember the Idaho State Capitol having a small set of displays on the lowest floor, but the Arizona State Capitol has a literal full-blown, multi-floor museum.

I think education should be affordable, accessible, and abundant. Although I support having a small government, I still believe government has an important place in society, and one of the roles I think it should have is to help provide opportunities to its people. Being educated is a great way to expand the scope of someone’s opportunities, so it was very nice seeing Arizona putting some of its funding towards educating the public about history and politics.