1205 Pulaski Street
Site of Dispensary Office Building
In 1901, prominent North Carolina architect Frank P. Milburn designed a two-story Italian Classic Revival office building for Governor Ben Tillman’s State Dispensary System, which supplied South Carolinians with their only legal source of alcohol from 1895 until 1907. Tillman’s monopoly spurred illicit saloons, violence, and corruption, but was profitable, providing almost half of the state’s tax revenues in 1899. Hurricane Hugo destroyed this architecturally significant building in 1989, ten years after its listing in the National Register of Historic Places.
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Dispensary Office Building, 1979. Image courtesy Russell Maxey Photograph Collection, Richland Library
