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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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Southwest Corner of Main and Taylor Streets

Site of D. Epstin's Clothing Shop

Polish immigrant Philip Epstin (1836-1921), a founder and later president of the Tree of Life Congregation from 1899 to 1901, opened D. Epstin's Clothing Store with his brother, David (b. 1824), in 1867 on the ground floor of the Columbia Hotel, located on the corner of Taylor and Richardson streets. The brothers arrived in the capital city during its post-Civil War rebuilding and were among several Jewish families who helped resurrect commerce on Main Street during the Reconstruction era. In 1893, following a brutal attack in which he was horsewhipped by assistant Fire Chief W. J. May and strong epithets were exchanged, Philip Epstin sued for $10,000 but the jury awarded him a scant one cent in damages.  

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    Advertisement for D. Epstin's Clothing House, 1875. Image courtesy South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia

  • Columbia Hotel, 1908

    Columbia Hotel, 1908. D. Epstin's Clothing Shop was located here during the Reconstruction period. Image courtesy Russell Maxey Collection, Richland Library

  • Philip Epstin.

    Philip Epstin. Reprinted from The Tree of Life: Fifty Years of Congregational Life at the Tree of Life Synagogue, Columbia, S.C by Helen Kohn Hennig

34.0063808, -81.0361079

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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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