In the first decades of the 20th century American governments were gripped by the City Beautiful Movement that emphasized monumental civic buildings wrapped in classical Greek and Roman influences. Des Moines got its government temple on New Year’s Day 1912, from the pens of Willis Thomas Proudfoot and George Washington Bird, the town’s most influential architects of the early 1900s. In preparation for the arrival of the new City Hall a new bridge was opened across the Des Moines River at Locust Street in 1909 and the streets were raised four feet to minimize flooding. The bricks on the symmetrical, well-proportioned structure are sheathed in granite down low and with Bedford limestone quarried in Indiana above.
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