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Please note The Museum of the Reconstruction Era will be closed for house tours Wednesday, Feb. 1 - Friday, Feb. 3 due to garden renovations.

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1508 Main Street

Kress Building

For much of the 20th century downtowns throughout the United States featured “Five and Dimes,” stores in which goods could be purchased at very reasonable prices. Kress, one of Columbia’s leading five and dimes, opened this store, the 233rd in its national chain, in June 1935. Architect Edward F. Sibert, who designed stores for the company throughout the nation, rendered plans for the $183,000 structure, which was considered completely fireproof.

  • Kress five & dime store, 1952. Image courtesy Richland Library.

    Kress five & dime store, December 1952. Image courtesy Richland Library.

  • Civil Rights protester marches outside of 1508 Main Street.

    Activist outside the Kress Building, 1961. Image courtesy John H. McCray Papers, South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia

  • Kress Building, 1978.

    Kress Building, 1978. Image courtesy Russell Maxey Photograph Collection, Richland Library

Featuring orange, green and blue glazed terra cotta tile cast in lotus petals and papyrus reeds, Columbia’s Kress building embraced the Depression era’s international fascination with Egyptian themes, in this case, expressed in an Art Deco style interpretation. At its completion, the building was considered “the finest unit in Kress’ chain.” A generation later, during the Civil Rights movement, this site gained historic importance as black and white college students protested against segregation by holding sit-ins at the store’s whites-only lunch counter. Their efforts proved successful, and Columbia’s downtown stores integrated peacefully and opened their lunch counters to black customers in 1962. In 1999, the building was rehabilitated for revitalized commercial use downstairs and apartment use upstairs under the auspices of Capitol Places.

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Historic Columbia

© 2023 Historic Columbia

Administrative Offices
1601 Richland Street
Columbia, SC 29201

Tours
All historic house and garden tours start at the Gift Shop at Robert Mills.
1616 Blanding Street
Columbia, SC 29201

Questions? Call (803) 252-7742.

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