Driving tour of schools, churches, businesses, and other sites around Columbia, S.C.; includes biographical information, references to the racial segregation practices of the day, as well as folklore and opinion, such as an appraisal of a long-demolished City Hall building, completed in 1874, "at a tremendous expense and although a handsome building, its destruction by fire in 1899 was hailed as a good riddance." Educational institutions discussed include public schools: Wardlaw, Columbia High, Logan (with background on its benefactor), Taylor ("commonly regarded as the first modern school building erected in Columbia"), and others; colleges represented include Chicora College, Columbia Theological Seminary, Benedict College, Allen University, Columbia Bible College, and USC. Other institutions discussed include the State Mental Hospital, and medical facilities at the Columbia Hospital, opened in 1933, which, by 1936 had "a total of 275 beds with separate accommodations for colored patients and a training school for white and colored nurses. There are 92 white nurses in training and 13 colored." Businesses and shopping districts represented include the "curb market building... built last year with Federal aid.... south of the building completed in 1924"; McGregor's Pharmacy, "the oldest business house remaining in Columbia.... Founded in 1836 and is exactly one hundred years old"; and Five Points: "This section has grown remarkably in the last few years and it was a comparatively short while ago nothing more than a tree overgrown swamp." Near First Presbyterian Church, the tour identifies "the Kinard home," as a structure moved from Granby in Lexington County, S.C., to downtown Columbia by First Presbyterian for use as a house of worship: "directly across from the Presbyterian Church... is the oldest building in Columbia.... [upon completion of the church], the building was moved across the street and converted into a residence by... [architect John Rudolph] Niernsee.... The building was originally used as a courthouse in the settlement of Granby.... the interior is really beautiful, especially the ceilings, which were executed by Page Ellington, a famous negro slave architect, all of the beautiful moldings being hand-cast in plaster by him.... one of the very few houses still lighted by gas fixtures." [Page Ellington (d. 1912) and his brother Oscar were enslaved natives of North Carolina who, by the late antebellum era lived in Columbia, S.C.]. This essay also notes Ellington's brickwork in various structures on the grounds of the mental hospital.
