house did have a gallery

IOWA LIVING DES MOINES SUNDAY REGISTER January 5, 1975

Iowa's Old Capitol DID
have a gallery

Workers hoist the last steel beam into place in the spectator's gallery of the House Chamber of Old Capitol at Iowa City.
The building will be rededicated as a restored frontier capitol on July 4, 1976.
Old Capitol served as Iowa's territorial and state capitol from 1842-1857 and was used as a
University of Iowa administrative and classroom building until the restoration was begun in 1970.

IOWA CITY, IA. -- "The gallery will be reserved for the ladies."

   So read the notice published in the Iowa City Daily Republican on June 27, 1856, concerning a public meeting to be held in Old Capitol here. It was an important clue to researchers grappling with the question of whether the gallery in the House Chamber had ever been built, according to Margaret N. Keyes, director of research for the Old Capitol Restoration project and University of Iowa associate professor of home economics.
    One thing was certain: the gallery no longer existed. Furthermore, it had disappeared from the records early in Old Capitol's history and there was no visible structural evidence that it had been built.
    There were also plenty of recorded statements by early Iowa legislators that the cost of building the gallery was prohibitive and so persons thought it never existed.
    But the case was solved when workmen removed plaster from the walls in the House Chamber and discovered wall sockets in the stone, filled with brick. Ms. Keyes said they had held support beams for the gallery.
   New steel support beams are now in place and spectators, seated on wooden benches, will once more look down on the 26 house chairs where Iowa's first elected representatives sat.
   The restoration of Old Capitol will be completed for the nation's 200th birthday on July 4, 1976. The official rededication will take place on that day.