Twenty-four-carat gold leaf glimmers from the Capitol's dome. It symbolizes the pride Colorado's citizens have always taken in the building. But the dome was not always gold. When built in the mid 1890s, it was sheathed in copper, which quickly tarnished to dull green.

The dome was first gilded in 1908. The job required 200 ounces of gold, then valued at $20 per ounce, or $4,000. With installation, the costs came to $14,680. A dome of gold, said the newspapers, belonged in a gold state, but by the 1940s the gold leaf had worn off, leaving the dome again tarnished and, in one citizen's view, "moth-eaten."

In 1950, 1980, and 1991 the second, third, and fourth applications of gold leaf were made.