The South Carolina Military Museum first opened in 1981 under the name "National Guard Museum and State Weapons Collection." This first museum was quite small, only 960 square feet.&nbsp;In 1998, it received its current name and it was decided that a newer, bigger building be its home. This second museum opened on February 6, 2007. The third and current museum building&nbsp;opened in 2014

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The South Carolina Museum is one of the largest National Guard museums in the United States. The museum offers an array of military memorabilia: authentic firearms, edged weapons, uniforms, artillery pieces, and armored fighting vehicles. The museum also offers interpretive exhibits that share the history of South Carolinians during various conflicts.  

South Carolina Military Museum

This drive along the western edge of Columbia includes former structures dating back to the antebellum era and the remnants of massive brick structures from the late 19th and early 20th century and concludes at a nearby museum. All of the entries on this tour are east of the Congaree River in Columbia

Western Edge of Columbia Driving Tour

The Evans and Cogwell Company was a printing and stationery company in Charleston established originally by James C. Walker in 1821. Walker added Benjamin F. Evans and then Harvey Cogswell as partners in the 1850's. The name was changed after Walker died in 1860. The firm became one of the major printers for the Confederate States of America and printed the infamous South Carolina Ordinance of Succession as well as currency. Evans and Cogswell moved the business from Charleston to a new building they constructed in Columbia in 1864. The upstate location was safer than Charleston, where the city was under bombardment by the Union from its harbor. The Confederate Printing Plant's contents were seized by Union forces during the occupation of Columbia by General Sherman in February 1865. The Federal troops burned the building and the interior was gutted. General Sherman's memoirs recalled Union soldiers carrying off large quantities of Confederate currency in all stages of printing. One of the maps printed by the company in 1864 is a map of eastern portions of North Carolina and Virginia, showing distances from the Confederate capital, Richmond, Virginia. Evans and Cogwell declared bankruptcy and sold the building after the Civil War. They added a new partner and moved the firm back to Charleston in 1866 where it operated for over one hundred more years. By 1872 the structure was being repaired and rebuilt even larger than its original footprint; a bird's eye view map of the city in 1872 shows the roofless, gutted building with just its walls and one gable end remaining, stretching the length of a block of Gervais Street, the main entrance route to town over the Congaree River bridge (picture below). A second story was added to this Greek Revival style commercial brick building. The southern side of the building, facing Gervais Street, is divided into repetitive bays by molded brick pilasters on both stories. The South Carolina Dispensary System was introduced in the 1890's for the state to control liquor distribution. The former Confederate Printing Plant became the dispensary warehouse until the system was abolished in 1907. Several grocers used the building for warehouse space in the 1910's. The Fitzgerald Paper Company created newsprint in part of the structure by 1921. Parts of the building were rented as apartments in the 1920's and 1930's, mainly to those who ran businesses from the structure. The building also was used in the 1930's as part of the U.S. Seed Loan Program. The structure continued to serve as a warehouse until the 1970s but was vacant in 1977 when the building was nominated to the National Register of Historic Places. Thought to be structurally unsound, the building almost was demolished. Publix Supermarket rehabbed the building in 2004 as part of its supermarket. Seven townhouses opened in 2010 in the eastern portion of the building.

The Evans and Cogwell Company printed Confederate bonds, stocks, and currency in Charleston, South Carolina during the Civil War. The firm built this structure in 1864 in Columbia and moved its operations here in April to escape bombardment of Charleston from the harbor. The Union Army under General Sherman occupied Columbia in February of 1865. The Confederate Printing Plant's contents were seized by the Federal forces and the 1-story, gable-roofed structure was burned. Rebuilt in the 1870's as two stories, the building later became a liquor or grocers warehouse. Spanning an entire city block, the vacant brick structure was listed on the National Register in March of 1979. The building is once again being used for storage, after being rehabbed as part of Publix supermarket. Ten townhomes grace the eastern end of the structure.

Confederate Printing Plant

Olympia Mills is one of four local textile mills designed and built by a Columbia firm near the turn of the twentieth century. Said to be the largest cotton mill in the world under one roof in 1899, Olympia Mills housed over 100,000 spindles and 2,250 looms on a property covering 104 acres. The rectangular, four-story brick structure is 553 feet long and 151 feet wide. Twin towers on the north side rise 65 feet above the fourth floor and contain arched entrances; two more towers are on the rear of the building. The towers contained stairways and toilets with a water reservoir/ sprinkler system in the uppermost portion. A terra cotta sign reads "Olympia Cotton Mills." The rear of the mill includes appendages including a powerhouse with a tall brick tower. The textile industry was part of the New South strategy that began after the Civil War and reached a peak near the turn of the twentieth century. The goals included making the South less economically and socially dependent on agriculture. Unlike antebellum South Carolina where yarn and cloth was typically produced on a small scale, the textile mills of the New South employed hundreds in one facility. Steam power and electricity freed mills from the need to locate near a water power supply. Columbia, with its railroad network rebuilt after the Civil War, and a hydroelectric plant on the Columbia Canal, became an attractive place to set up textile milling. By 1910, South Carolina - with 167 cotton mills - was second only to Massachusetts in the number of cotton mills. By 1920, one in five White workers in South Carolina lived in a mill village, where housing and community resources were built by mills for their workers and their families. William Burroughs Smith Whaley was a mechanical engineer educated in the North who returned to South Carolina in 1893. In 1894, Whaley and Gadsden E. Shand, a local civil engineer, set up a company in Columbia specializing in mill design and construction, W. B. Smith Whaley and Company. The firm built and managed four mills in Columbia: Richland Cotton Mills (1895), Granby Cotton Mills (1897), Olympia Mills (1899), and Capital City Mills (1900). The four enterprises were known as a group as Whaley Mills; the Granby Mills building is situated only feet away, to the west of Olympia Mills. By 1907, over 2,000 people worked in Whaley Mills. The law outlawed children under twelve working in a factory, mine or mill but the rule was not always followed; less than half of the children living in the Olympia Village in 1907 attended school. Southern textile workers usually earned on average 60 percent of the wages earned by their New England counterparts. After repeated changes in ownership and downsizing, Olympia Mills closed its doors in 1996. The mill building was listed in the National Register in 2005. The arch motif repeated on the building is one of the distinctive architectural features of its Romanesque Revival style, as well as the tall towers. Two one-story brick gatehouses along Heyward Street are part of the mill complex. The mill building also is part of a NRHP historic district listed in 2018, Olympia Mill Village Historic District. The mill stands at the northern edge of the district. The new apartment complex in the renovated mill building is now accepting leases for fall of 2020.

The largest cotton mill under one roof when it opened in 1899, Olympia Mill is over 550 feet long with 53 bays along Heyward Street. Its four towers with orange brick and terra cotta detailing each contained a reservoir of 15,000 gallons of water. The mill was one of four local textile mills in the southern fringes of Columbia built by Whaley Smith and Company from 1895 to 1900. In its heyday, the mill produced cloth that was 36 inches wide with 5-1/2 yards weighing one pound, or 38 inches wide with 7 yards to the pound. The mill operated under a number of different owners until finally closing in 1996. Olympia Mill was listed in the National Register in 2005 for its significance in industry and architecture. It is part of the Olympia Mill Village Historic District, listed in 2018, including some of the workers' housing, churches, and schools built to the south of the mill by the mill owners. The mill building and its nearby counterpart, Granby Mills, have been renovated into apartments designed for local college students and young professionals. 

Olympia Mill

Olympia Union Hall was built in the mid-1940s in the midst of two textile mill villages, Olympia and Granby. Constructed of concrete blocks, heavy brick buttresses at the exterior corners and on either side of the center bays of the facades give the building a unique look that does not fit a particular architectural style. It is difficult not to see the resemblance to a fort, however. Some of the first-floor window sills contain grates. The gabled roof is hidden by stepped end-walls and the main entrance is through double wooden doors in the building's southeast corner, beneath a corner buttress. The surrounding neighborhood retains many of the houses built for textile workers of nearby Olympia Mill in a "mill village." Olympia Cotton Mill was built in 1899 by the firm of Whaley and Company. One of three mills in Columbia run by the firm, the trio was known collectively as the Whaley Mills. Textile mill workers in Columbia and the state typically earned about 60 percent less than industrial workers in the Northeastern U.S. Progressive ideas touted by labor unions at the turn of the twentieth century like child labor laws found little support in Columbia where families sometimes relied on multiple wages. Wages took a dramatic upturn during World War I, so workers were not looking to stir up trouble. Post-war, a glut of workers and reduced demand led to wage cuts. The Great Depression made the situation worse, and labor activism began to appear in the mill villages. Half of the state's textile workers were members of the United Textile Workers (UTW) union by 1934 when a general textile workers strike was held along the East Coast from Maine to Alabama. The Textile Workers Union of America (TWUA) Local 254 was organized in 1939; also in that year, Olympia Mills was sold. Once Olympia Mill began to close down operations in 1939, many of the support services provided by the company in the village began to disappear. The local schools, parks, and churches were among the benefits being lost by the textile workers. The company also had provided benefits of a communal garden plot and pastureland. Non-textile workers began moving into the village. The government-run mill created linens and cloth for uniforms during World War II. Before the Olympia Union Hall was constructed, the local chapter met in the Olympia High School auditorium, which may have been too close for comfort to the Olympia armory and its National Guard troops. Construction of the Union Hall, funded by the local chapter and costing about $11,000, proceeded slowly. The heavy cinder block walls and sturdy brick buttresses seemed to represent the union's commitment to the neighborhood. Local 254 hosted regular meetings in the new union hall in the 1940's and 1950's and served members working at all five mills in Columbia. Meeting spaces were upstairs with offices downstairs. The local chapter provided food for workers during strikes and helped negotiate pension plans. When the mills closed for the Labor Day holiday, the local would sponsor a community cookout. In 1975, Columbia became the site of the first chapter of the Carolina Brown Lung Association which worked to shine light on health problems experienced by textile workers. The main concern was brown lung disease, or byssinosis; early organizational meetings and health screenings took place at Olympia Union Hall. The TWUA merged with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America in 1976, forming the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU). Due to the trend of textile mills relocating overseas, the Olympia Union Hall building closed in 1996. The structure was sold to a real estate developer in 1998 who rented the space to artists who renovated the space to use as a studio. The building was used later as practice space for a band and as a home. Olympia Union Hall was listed in the National Register in 2017 for its local significance in social history from 1946 to 1975 and its association with the TWUA Local 254. It is evidence of the struggle between textile workers and mill management, and the mill workers' efforts to organize to defend their rights. The building was vacant by 2012 and still vacant in 2016.

Olympia Union Hall is a rarity in the Southern U.S. - a building associated with a union for textile workers. Built by 1946, the corners of the building and the center bay of each exterior wall are buttressed, giving the structure a fort-like appearance, ready for battle with its members' employers. The structure was listed in the National Register in 2017 for its association with a local chapter of a textile workers union which was established in 1939 amidst the uncertainty of the future when Olympia Mill was being sold. The former mill owners had not only built a village of houses for its workers, but provided schools, churches, and parks. The building housed offices and meeting space for the local chapter of the union until it closed in 1996, when the decline of the U.S. textile industry brought an end to the local chapter's purpose.


Olympia Union Hall

Olympia Armory was constructed in 1936 to 1937 as a Depression-era Works Progress Administration (WPA) project. Although the address is in the 500's block of Granby Lane, the building is located on the north side of Granby Lane, opposite a railroad spur line, east of Granby's intersection with Whitney Street. The rectangular structure features a barrel vaulted roof, brick parapet end walls, and intricate brick details. The red brick building exhibits Art Deco or Moderne architectural details in its corbelled pilasters and window surrounds, and the triple step-down of the parapet. It is one of twenty-four armories in the state from this time period, under the command of Brigadier General James C. Dozier. Before this time, the state only contained two armories - one on Assembly Street in Columbia dating to 1905 and one in Beaufort from 1776! Rented spaces had housed dozens of National Guard units in South Carolina until the armories were constructed. Since the new WPA armories contained an interior open space of at least 75 by 100 feet, they were popular additions to local communities. Situated between two textile mill villages, Olympia and Granby, the armory hosted local sporting events, theatrical performances, and civic meetings. The local drum and bugle corp practiced at the armory. The nearby Olympia School utilized the armory as its gymnasium until one could be built for the school. Olympia Armory was listed in the National Register in 1995 as an example of Art Deco and Moderne architecture for armories of the era. The building currently houses offices of the South Carolina State Guard, an organization that has been around since 1670 as the Charleston Militia. The State Guardsmen are volunteers who protect from natural and man-made disasters, like Hurricane Hugo and the Great Flood of 2015. The army brigade is part of the South Carolina military department and reports to the Governor of South Carolina.

Olympia Armory was built during the Great Depression in a Federal Government-sponsored program, in 1936 to 1937.  The Art Deco brick building with parapet end walls and decorative brickwork was one of 24 armories built in the state by this program. Before this time, the state had only two armories, one from 1905 and one from 1776!

Olympia Armory, locally significant for its architecture, was listed in the National Register in 1995.  The armory is near two former textile mill villages, Olympia and Granby. It once served as the gymnasium for the nearby Olympia School until the school built its own gym. The building currently houses offices of the South Carolina State Guard.

Olympia Armory

The gamecocks won their first game in 1934 beating Erskine 25-0. Over the years the Gamecocks have never won a national championship and have only had&nbsp;one Heisman Trophy winner, George Rodgers, who won it&nbsp;in 1980. The stadium's address is named after him in his honor.&nbsp;The stadium sits next to the state's largest fairgrounds. The stadium's crowds have been voted the best atmosphere by SECsports.com. The largest crowd ever recorded at the stadium—83,987—was on November 22, 2003&nbsp;at a game against&nbsp;Clemson,&nbsp;the school's&nbsp;inner state rival.Some other notable events at the stadium was a visit by Pope John Paul II in 1987, who&nbsp;spoke to a crowd of over 60,000. In 1996, Farm Aide played performances to raise funds for needy farmers at the time. In 2007 Barak Obama attracted 29,000 attendees for a Democratic fund raiser.

Holding a capacity of 82,250, the William Brice Stadium is currently the 20th largest stadium in NCAA football. The stadium was originally built in 1934 and serves as the home stadium for the South Carolina Gamecocks. When it opened it only seated 17,600. Expansions took place during the coming decades bringing the capacity to its current size. It received its current name in 1972.

Western Edge of Columbia Driving Tour

South Carolina Military Museum

Introduction

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Backstory and Context

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