Georgia's government met in several cities before Atlanta became the permanent capital during Reconstruction. The 1868 state constitution moved the capital from Milledgeville to the rapidly growing railroad city, a decision confirmed by voters amid federal military oversight and fierce political conflict. State offices first occupied Atlanta's former city hall. By the 1880s, legislators judged that building inadequate and authorized a new capitol on land donated by the city. Construction began in 1884 with a fixed one-million-dollar appropriation, and the completed government building opened in 1889.

Chicago architects Willoughby J. Edbrooke and Franklin Pierce Burnham designed a monumental classical building with a central rotunda, legislative chambers, offices, broad stairs, and Corinthian porticoes. Georgia marble appeared prominently inside, while Indiana limestone and other materials formed much of the exterior. The structure incorporated steam heat, elevators, and gas and electric lighting, making it modern as well as symbolic. A copper statue commonly called Miss Freedom crowned the dome. The dome was originally clad in metal rather than the brilliant Georgia gold leaf now associated with Atlanta's skyline.

The Capitol became the working setting for state government through disenfranchisement, Jim Crow segregation, industrial expansion, reform, and civil-rights struggle. Legislators enacted laws that restricted Black voting and enforced racial separation, while citizens repeatedly petitioned, protested, and organized at the building. In 1946 the Georgia Supreme Court's white-primary decision and later federal reforms altered political participation. Demonstrations over segregation, the Confederate battle emblem, voting rights, labor, and public policy made the grounds a contested civic space rather than a neutral architectural monument.

Georgia gold from the Dahlonega region was first applied to the dome in 1958–1959 and has been renewed in later campaigns. Restoration in the 1990s returned legislative chambers and public spaces toward documented 1889 colors and decoration while updating building systems. Original stone, marble, iron, woodwork, spatial organization, and significant finishes survive, but plaster, paint, roofing, mechanical equipment, safety systems, offices, and furnishings have changed. Museum displays dating to the building's early years evolved into the Georgia Capitol Museum; they are curated collections inside an active government building.

The State of Georgia owns and maintains the Capitol, while the General Assembly, governor, and other offices continue to use it and the University of Georgia Libraries supports museum interpretation. Public access and tours are generally free but subject to security, legislative business, construction, and current schedules. The Capitol is best understood as purpose-built 1889 civic fabric continually adapted for government, not as a building restored to a politically uncomplicated past. Its history connects Reconstruction, the New South, exclusion, protest, public administration, architectural symbolism, and the continuing democratic claim that citizens may enter and scrutinize state power.