OTL Bonus Episode: Under The Lege - "That Time The Capitol Caught On Fire"

This is our first bonus episode of Over the Lege - we’re calling the series "Under The Lege" and we're going to do some deep dives into moments of Texas State Legislature Lore that come up during our Over The Lege Podcast episodes. In the second podcast episode of this season with legislative guest Andy Cates on October 29th, we briefly mentioned that there had been a fire in the Lt. Governor’s apartment back in the 1980s. So Stephanie Chiarello decided to do some research on the fire and report her findings back to you. Enjoy!

The official story can be found at these links:

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/07/us/around-the-nation-fire-kills-a-guest-in-the-texas-capitol.html

https://www.kut.org/austin/2015-02-04/wayback-wednesday-the-capitol-fire-of-1983

https://tspb.texas.gov/prop/tc/tc-history/restoration/index.html

The "Only Murders in the Building" version of the story was found at the blog:

"Babylon On The Colorado" - Posted on the blog, Texas Mostly, on May 6, 2019

Every fifteen minutes of the day a tour begins on the first floor of the Capitol. The guides are mostly fresh-scrubbed college students, young women in identical skirts and white blouses, and the young men in button-down shirts with conservative striped ties. They begin at the south foyer offering visitors a view of the flags carved in the marble floor representing the six countries that have, at one time or another, ruled Texas. It’s the original granite-faced big house, completed in 1888, by prison labor and Scottish stonemasons, paid for by a swap of 3,000,000 acres of public land in West Texas – an area twice the size of Delaware – that remains the soul of the state.

From the rotunda, the guide leads the way to the Senate floor. When the Legislature is not in session, tourists oooh and aaah over the paintings of heroes and ask more questions. Except for the velour ropes and portraits of dead white men on the walls the Senate chamber has the feel of a bordello parlour. The tour leaders were previously warned by the Preservation Board, responsible for the Capitol’s maintenance, “Do not add material or stories to your tour that are not in your packet. If someone asks you a question that you don’t have information on, tell them to stop by our office after the tour and we will try to answer it." Nowadays a little adlibbing is permitted. Invariably it’s in the back of the mind of any Texan of a certain age that a fire took place on the Senate side – a very destructive fire in which someone died. The occasional tourist may even know that the fire led to the renovation of the capital and eventually, in a sense, to the creation of the extension. “Wasn’t it something about an apartment?” visitors may ask, referring to the origin of the blaze. It was so long ago that details only buzz vaguely in the back of minds, as a sense more than a concrete knowing.

If the visitor asks how the fire started the official story is that a television set shorted out in what was then the Lieutenant Governor’s apartment behind the Senate floor. Specifically, it was a Zenith TV although that’s not mentioned. The set originally cost $425 and had a “self-extinguishing cabinet,” which isn’t mentioned either, yet it spontaneously melted down and almost took the soul of Texas with it.

That's the official story.

It has survived three decades, but in recent years old evidence that was obscured has come to light – and a key witness spoke a few words before dying. Both contradicted the official explanation. The official story of the Capitol fire now appears to be exactly what it is, a complete fabrication told to protect a very powerful political family – a family that has included a governor and lieutenant governor and once defined the Texas establishment the way the Bushes now do.Actually, two people died in the fire. One of the victims of the Capitol fire was a 23-year-old horse trainer from a barn in New Caney, outside Houston, who succumbed to smoke inhalation on February 6, 1983, in a bedroom of the then-Lieutenant Governor Hobbyr’s then-apartment, behind the Senate chamber. The other was a Capitol policeman who breathed his last breath after a minor car accident in Guanajuato, down on Mexico’s central plateau, a year later.

Those are the latest two victims of the Texas myth – or in this case the Texas lie.

February 5, 1983:

The 68th session of the Legislature had just begun and Lt. Gov William P. Hobby was in town, staying at a duplex he shared with his ...