"The ad had an illustration of the shoes, and they were for sale for about $5.95," Shepherd said. "I always thought it was funny. I thought, 'Did some guy go home barefoot that day?' "

Behind some storage shelving workers found several Deseret National Bank checks from 1921.

Rob Pett, the project's lead architect for historical preservation, said he's just excited that anything was left.

"It was mostly debris," Pett said. "They're not jewels by any means, but a history of the life of the place. We haven't found what the senators hid, but we've found what workers hid, and they're the ones who built the place."

Some workers left their mark by signing different parts of the building. An engineer from 1934-38 autographed an area just above one of the seagulls painted in the Capitol's dome 165 feet above the floor. A wood piece was found with the writing, "The case in front of this cabinet is for Davis County built by Fred Ellis December 1925," on it.

Shepherd has been most excited about finding a small piece of wood from the original mahogany window frames and some original painting designs from the governor's area of the building. The piece of wood will be used to match new window frames with the original mahogany shade.

The architects have been consulting with a local decorative painter to strip down details in the governor's area that had been painted over.

"Being able to strip those layers back is interesting from a historical perspective because it allows us to see the different steps they took," Shepherd said.

Shepherd said crews found things that had been completely covered up with carpet or paint.

"It's been fascinating," Shepherd said. "It's been fun to come to work each day."

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E-mail: nclemens@desnews.com