One of the state's most important documents, perhaps the most important document, remains missing.

There are three handwritten copies of the state constitution but the original document, drafted at a constitutional convention in Madison in December 1847, approved in February 1848 and adopted by voters a month later, disappeared shortly afterward.

It's unclear who may have taken or borrowed the state's legal charter, but one theory is that it may have been loaned to a newspaper publisher and not returned. According to the Wisconsin Historical Society, as soon as the constitution was approved by the delegates, newspaper publishers rushed copies into print so voters, who rejected a first draft in 1846, could evaluate it.

The first printing appears to have been in the Potosi Republican on Feb. 10, 1848, while Madison printers H.A. Tenney and Beriah Brown issued the constitution in pamphlet form at about the same time.

The copy on display in the Capitol rotunda is not signed but is a replica of the original document.