Congress met for the first time in the Capitol in 1800 ... and plans for expansion began. President Millard Fillmore chose architect Thomas U. Walter to lead the project. As the building expanded ...

site administrator for the Capitol. "He took all of his drawings, and he left North Carolina." Without the original blueprints, the state has no record of how the building is put together.

On November 17, 1800, the United States Congress met for the very first time in the as-yet-unfinished Capitol building in Washington, D.C. President George Washington had laid the cornerstone in ...