Interesting Facts About the Supreme Court Building

I have spent the past couple of days looking through the papers of Justices Willis Van Devanter, George Sutherland and Harlan Fiske Stone for my article on Justice Pierce Butler for Vanderbilt Law Review‘s Conference next spring on underappreciated Supreme Court Justices. Not only has my research revealed quite a bit about the personality of the Court during the 1920s and 1930s, I have also discovered some interesting tidbits about the Supreme Court Building. We know quite a bit about the members of the Court, but not much is written about the building that houses them. I will share some facts about the building with you after the jump.

The first interesting tidbit is that the Court and the Architect of the Capitol initially selected a different site for the Supreme Court Building. Rather than its current location, which is just a stone’s throw from the United States Capitol, the proposed location for the Court was here, directly south of the White House and very near the Jefferson Memorial and Tidal Basin.

A second fact concerns the laying of the cornerstone for the building, which occurred at 10 a.m. on October 13, 1932. President Herbert Hoover used a trowel “made from old articles long used in the Supreme Court Chamber to lay the cornerstone.” The cornerstone of the building contains the following items:

1. A ceramic photograph of the Supreme Court membership at the time
2. A ceramic photograph of the late Chief Justice Taft
3. Public documents relating to the history of the building
4. The latest volume of the American Bar Association reports
5. A photograph of the model of the building
6. A copy of a drawing of the plan of the main floor of the building, signed by Cass Gilbert, the architect of the building.
7. The latest volume of the Supreme Court Reports
8. A volume of the Congressional directory for the 72nd Congress, 1st Sess.
9. A New York World Almanac for 1932
10. A photograph of the U.S. Capitol
11. A pamphlet containing the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence
12. The latest Annual Report of the Attorney General
13. A copy of the address delivered by the Chief Justice of the United States on the occasion of the laying of the cornerstone
14. A copy of the address delivered by John W. Davis
15. A copy of the address delivered by Guy A. Thompson
16. A copy of the United States Daily for Oct. 13, 1932
17. A copy of the program of ceremonies attending the laying of the cornerstone of the Supreme Court Building
18. A copy of the program of the fifty-fifth annual meeting of the American Bar Association