9/17/20: Charming Columbia, South Carolina

Steven and I had arrived the previous day in South Carolina's capital city of Columbia too late in the day to see any of the city center or tour the capitol building. That was why we devoted the next mid-September day to do both. We started with the Trinity Episcopal Church  that was organized in 1812 with the present church built in 1848. In the churchyard were buried a notable poet, US senator, five state governors, and soldiers from the Revolutionary and later American wars.

The Trinity Parish House was constructed in 1924.

Across the street were the lovely statehouse grounds that sat on 18 beautifully landscaped acres. The first monument we noticed honored veterans of the 1898-1902 Spanish-American War, a war I never remember hearing about while growing up in Canada and taking the required American history classes. Interestingly, Puerto Rico was written as Porto Rico on the monument, a spelling that was new to me.

When Columbia was founded in 1786, the city replaced Charleston (perhaps our favorite Southern city!) as the state capital because 'upstaters' didn't want to spend two weeks traveling to the coastal city. The first statehouse or capitol was a small wooden building built in 1789 just west of the current site. Construction of the current building began in 1855 but work had to be suspended in 1863 during the Civil War. Union troops burned the old statehouse in 1865 and shelled the blue granite walls of the unfinished building, raising the US flag over it.

Because the columns on the porticos were each carved from just one piece of stone, they were believed to be the largest monolithic columns of any public building in the country. 

This was one of the six bronze stars that marked the spots on the capitol struck by General William Sherman's Union Army cannonballs during the Civil War.

During the occupation of Columbia by Sherman in 1865, soldiers broke off the cane's lower part on the George Washington statue that had honored the country's first president. The statue stood 6'2.5" tall as it had been modeled from life.

The capitol's interior floors were of pink Tennessee and white Georgia marble. The columns were each made from one piece of blue granite, the state stone. We learned that there were seismic indicators under the capitol because Columbia was prone to earthquake activity. 

We had to look very closely at the original arched ceiling to observe it had been made of brick.

In the lower lobby was The Angel of Marye's Heights painting depicting Confederate soldier Richard Kirkland who risked his life to share water with wounded enemy troops during the 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg.

The capitol dome was made of 42,000 panels and was in two parts: a false interior dome designed for aesthetic reasons that fit inside the exterior dome that was only visible from the outside. The latter was made of steel and wood, finished with copper.

The Main Lobby was one of the most beautiful of any state capitol we'd yet viewed with its grand wrought-iron railing and collection of paintings, plaques, and statues that reflected the state's history. It looked more like a very, very large, and tastefully decorated home than a statehouse. Like other antebellum statehouses, South Carolina's was designed in the shape of a cross so that both the Senate and House would each have their own wing. 

In the center of the lobby was a statue of John Calhoun (1782-1850), a vice-president under two presidents, a US representative, and a senator!

Just outside the Senate was the Battle of Cowpens painting that was one of the first works to depict a Black American in a Revolutionary War battle. We learned that South Carolina saw more battles during that war than any other state.

The decoration on the staircase banister was of the yellow jessamine, the state flower.

The impressive desk in the center of the House of Representatives was of British Honduran mahogany and dated from 1937. 

The elegant desk in the Senate had likewise been carved of Honduran mahogany but in Columbia in 1915. 

We had a bird's eye view of the attractive main lobby from the second floor.

I'm a sucker for stained glass windows so was very partial to the one on the second floor.

The State Seal depicting a palmetto tree growing on the seashore was symbolic of the Revolutionary War fort on Sullivan's Island. Even though I took several years of Latin many decades ago in high school, I needed help translating the motto. It meant "Prepared in mind and resources."

Back on the capitol grounds, we stopped at The African American History Monument that traced more than 300 years of African American history in the state. It had been dedicated to the people of South Carolina in 2001 "to recognize the many accomplishments and contributions of African Americans to the state." The monument was the first of its kind on statehouse grounds anywhere in the country. The center obelisk represented spirituality and was designed to remind visitors of the pyramids in Egypt. 

At the base of the obelisk was a large bronze ship icon with 336 enslaved Africans chained together in the bowels of the ship for the long trans-Atlantic voyage to their new homeland. 

A granite map of the African continent had four rubbing stones from the Congo, Ghana, Senegal, and Sierra Leone where most of the slaves were captured. About forty percent of the slaves brought to America came through South Carolina's port city of Charleston. 

The very moving panels around the monument depicted pivotal scenes in the lives of African Americans once they were captured and brought to America: the trans-Atlantic crossing known as the Middle Passage, the auction block in Charleston, slave labor, slaves seeking freedom, the first all-Black unit established in the Civil War, emancipation, and so many more. As you can see from the photos, the weather was pretty miserable so we didn't spend as much time at the monument as we would normally have liked to do.

Nearby was a statue of former governor and Civil War General Wade Hampton astride his horse. Palmetto trees lined the adjacent sidewalk.

One of the US longest-serving senators was South Carolinian Strom Thurmond who retired at the age of 100 after serving 48 years in Washington. Thurmond was the first senator to be elected by a write-in vote. The former governor was present when his monument was unveiled when he was 97 in 1999.

The City of Columbia Bicentennial Time Capsule had been placed underneath the monument in 1986 to be opened in 2036 on Columbia's 250th anniversary. I would have been curious to know what items had been placed in the capsule for the future generation to learn about Columbia.

The Law Enforcement Monument honored all South Carolina corrections officers who had died in the line of duty. The five granite panels included the names of those slain.

A close-up view of the copper exterior dome:

From the capital we walked just a couple of blocks downtown as the city's Art Deco architecture appealed to us. In what still turned out to be the early days of the pandemic, it was reassuring to read Maya Angelou's words on the Nickelodeon "Every storm runs out of rain.'

We spent some time in the Mast General Store located on Main Street and that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Columbia branch had been thriving since America's Reconstruction period and still had its original pressed-tin ceiling. It was fun looking at the over 500 old-fashioned varieties of candies and the appealing handicrafts from throughout South and North Carolina.

I appreciated how the city fathers encouraged Columbia residents to do their part during the pandemic.

Historic posters along the street told of the state's and city's battle with civil rights during the 1960s. I read that of the hundreds of sit-in cases that were prosecuted nationally, the US Supreme Court heard 17, four of which were from South Carolina. The Court's decisions helped ensure the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

I was especially charmed by Columbia's emphasis on public art as we toured the city.

Seeing the massive chain links that connected two buildings across the street caught our attention. I didn't know if it may have referred to the slaves brought over from Africa, the city's civil rights history, or had another meaning. 

This was one of the most beautiful clocks we'd ever seen in public.

Columbia's city buses were desegregated after 20-year-old Sarah Mae Fleming in 1954 boarded a city bus and sat near the front in the "Whites Only" section and refused to obey the driver's order to move to the rear of the bus. When she tried to leave by the front door, the driver hit Fleming in the stomach. With the assistance of the NAACP and a Civil Rights pioneer lawyer, she filed a lawsuit arguing that the Brown v Board of Education decision should be applied to public transportation. As a result of the bus system desegregation, there was an important legal precedent set for the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama that was inspired by the arrest of the far more famous Rosa Parks.

Even in the very dreary weather, we couldn't help but chuckle when we came across Lovely Rita the Meter Maid piece of public art.

 

The HOPE for Columbia artwork was designed to be "A sign of hope, a message of positivity, for the bright future of the Columbia community as we join together, better, and stronger than ever." The sign incorporated the colors of the city's flag.

If you ever are curious to know about the legendary Southern charm and hospitality, all you need to do is to head to Columbia! I can't tell you the number of times people stopped us to ask if they could help us find anything or just welcomed us to their city. 

The three-story tall Canal Dime Savings Bank building was completed in 1895 with a granite façade and red barrel tile roof. It was a rare example of a Romanesque-style architecture in the city. The bank was acquired by Eckerd's Pharmacy in 1936 and continued to operate until the 1980s.

In 1960, two African American college students led a protest march to the Eckerd's luncheonette. They were refused service because of their race, then jailed and convicted for refusing to leave their seats. However, a Supreme Court decision overturned their convictions. Their sit-in was part of the protest movements against racial segregation in Columbia and elsewhere. 

The Governor's Mansion was located in the former Arsenal Academy, a state arsenal whose buildings had been burned by Union troops except for the officers quarters during the Civil War.

Just two blocks from the Governor's mansion, both Steven and I were totally surprised on finding a Cemetery of the Columbia Hebrew Benevolent Society in this Southern city. Many distinguished Jewish citizens, including two mayors, were buried in the cemetery that was organized in 1922 and chartered in 1934.

Not far away was Memorial Park dedicated to the memory of those who have fought and died in service to their country. The first  monument we saw honored the USS Columbia warship and those that served with her during WWII. Between July, 1942, and September, 1945, the Columbia was officially credited with destroying 27 planes, assisting in the the sinking of one destroyer and one cruiser at the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay and two battleships, one cruiser and one destroyer at the Battle of Surigao Straits.

A stream meandering through the park would have delighted Max and Clara, our two granddaughters, if they had been with us!

Never before had we seen a memorial to those who perished at Pearl Harbor except in Hawaii. 

The park also featured a Holocaust Monument that stood on a granite Star of David and displayed the names of Holocaust liberators and survivors from South Carolina engraved on its granite walls. 

The memorial included a map of the death and concentration camps across Europe where the Nazis implemented the murder of six million Jews as part of their Final Solution.

The Vietnam Memorial Monument, the largest of its type outside of Washington, was a memorial to the 980 South Carolinians who died or were lost in action in Vietnam. 

Each missing or lost South Carolinian was listed by his or her county.

We then headed over to the Seaboard Air Line Railway Passenger Depot that was built in 1904 and was the third passenger depot built in Columbia. The depot served passengers on the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad and the Southern Railway. The depot had also been listed in the National Register of Historic Places and was part of the West Gervais Street Historic District. 

The historic district was a fun, fun area with lots of independent restaurants and shops which would have been a delight to peruse if it hadn't been near the end of the day.

The negative space in the Body in Spirit sculpture captured "that which is seen through it, thereby visually filling the void with what surrounds the sculpture."

South of downtown was the University of South Carolina (USC) that had been chartered in 1801 and still played a prominent role in the life of the capital city. These trees were planted in memory of the USC students and alumni who gave their lives on the Mexican border and in the world from 1916-1918.

Melton Observatory:

Cocky was the team mascot for the USC Gamecocks.

Whenever I come across one of these Keep Calm signs, I always think of my kindergarten friend, Mary Pat, who showed me one of the first such signs. This was a cute take on the pandemic.

It was fun wandering then around the USC campus which just oozed charm.

Janina: I think you'd have gotten a kick out of the steam vents around the campus.

Gibbes Green was named for Maj. Gen. Wade Hampton (1837-1903), a prominent Columbian who owned much of the land near the campus. The land had been kept for many years as a playground, ball field, and park for several generations of Columbians before Davis College became the first building on Gibbes Green in 1910.

A banner proclaimed that Columbia had been designated as the number three college town in the country by some organization. I would have had a tough time disputing that accolade as Columbia thoroughly charmed me.

Next post: Columbia's colorful murals that we saw while in between touring some of the sights in the above post.

Posted on May 5th, 2021, from Denver where the sun has been trying to make its presence felt even though we've had the rainiest spring since the 1940s! I hope life is sunnier in every respect for you and your loved ones as you still cope with the pandemic.