Texada is the earliest brick building in Natchez. It was built while Spain ruled much of the American South – sometime between 1793 and 1805. From 1817-1820, it served as Mississippi’s state capitol building, before the capital moved on to Columbia and Jackson. It is the earliest surviving state capitol building in the United States. I photographed only part of the building, because I wanted to feature the two trees that frame one of the front windows. I cropped the trees to stress the thrust of the branches reaching upwards, as well emphasizing as the coiled roots at their base that seem to lie as much above the ground as beneath it. The image itself speaks of the roots of both a city and a state, and these tree roots anchoring this image serve as an appropriate metaphor.