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Wisconsin State Capitol North Hearing Room

  
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 North Hearing Room
This is the North Hearing Room. It is located on the second floor in the north wing of the Capitol. This room is used by the legislature for public committee hearings.

The design of this room is very different from the State Capitol's Senate Chamber, Assembly Chamber and Supreme Court. It is carried out in a brilliant color scheme, with walls of yellow Verona marble and symmetrical Monte Rente Sienna panels between the pilasters. The wall base and floor border is of Porte d'Or Italian marble, which is black and gold. The room is treated with a coved ceiling and in the coves are painted murals by Charles Yardley Turner of New York, 1914-1915.

The murals in the North Hearing Room represent the four methods of transportation in Wisconsin from the earliest colonial times to the present day. Originally, the Railroad Commission used the Hearing Room so that is why the murals reflect the history of transportation. One mural depicts Native Americans on horseback; another shows a French trading post with a canoe as the method of transportation. The third painting represents the colonial period, with transportation by stagecoach. The last mural identifies modern transportation, with the steamboat, railroad, automobile and airplane.