501 Gervais Street
Former Confederate Printing Plant/South Carolina State Dispensary Warehouse
Evans and Cogswell, the Charleston-based printer of bonds and currency for the Confederacy, relocated to Columbia in April 1864. At the time of its construction, the building had no second floor. The structure was divided into three sections. One served as living quarters for printers, one as storage for the stationery and book store, and the largest section as print shop, holding 102 presses and other lithographic equipment. The company operated within this building until February 1865, when Union troops burned the structure. Rebuilt after the war and later enlarged, the property became a warehouse for carriage, seed and cotton companies. Rebuilt after a fire in 1898, it warehoused liquor for the South Carolina Sate Dispensary system until 1907. In 2004, a rehabilitation project transformed the vacant building into Publix Super Market. Seven fashionable townhouses known as Estates on Gervais debuted in the eastern portion of the building in 2010.
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South Carolina State Dispensary Warehouse, 2018. Historic Columbia collection
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South Carolina State Dispensary Warehouse, 2018. Historic Columbia collection
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Carte de Visite by Wearn and Hix, 1865. Image courtesy South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina
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Cyanotype, circa 1895. Historic Columbia collection
