JEFFERSON CITY - A power outage left the Capitol in darkness for just more than two hours Monday.

The cause of the blackout was not immediately determined, and many state employees simply lit candles in their offices, or took advantage of natural light, and continued the work day as usual.

AmerenMissouri spokesman Mike Cleary said an electrical fault in a circuit that serves the Capitol building triggered the outage. According to Cleary, the outage also affected the nearby Truman building and St. Peter catholic church and school. The power went out at 11:08 PM and Ameren workers restored it at 1:15 PM. Cleary said AmerenMissouri was still investigating the cause of the faulty switch and will ultimately need to install new parts, but was able to re-route power sources until then.  

The power outage coincided with the new legislator orientation session. Earlier in the day, House Speaker Ron Richard said the freshmen meetings would go on as scheduled, whether or not the power was restored.

"If we have to do it by candle light, we'll do that too," Richard said. "It's back to 1821, I'm gonna give [the new legislators] a sense of history anyway. I didn't know it was gonna revert all the way back."