For the first 146 years of its existence, the Supreme Court lacked its own permanent home. Between 1790 and 1935, the Court met in 11 different locations in New York, Philadelphia, and the District of Columbia. Five of those locations were within the U.S. Capitol building, where the Court held most of its sessions after 1800. In 1929, Chief Justice and former president William Howard Taft convinced Congress to provide funding for a Supreme Court building and selected architect Cass Gilbert to design it. Taft’s successor as Chief Justice, Charles Evans Hughes, laid the cornerstone in 1932, and construction was completed in 1935. The Court held its first session in its new home on October 7, 1935, and has occupied the building ever since. The construction of the Supreme Court building was part of a massive wave of construction during the New Deal years that resulted in all but five states having at least one new federal courthouse completed during the 1930s.
See also: