929 Pine Street
Former S.H. Smith Tourist Home
Alice Kessler had this residence built in 1913 and lived here with her son, Samuel Hiller, and his sisters, Simmie Hiller Smith and Bernice Hiller Fambro. Smith, a dressmaker, welcomed both famous travelers and college students from Allen University into her home and also taught sewing in her basement while employed as a home demonstration agent. Listed in the Negro Travelers’ Green Book from 1938 until 1967 as the "Mrs. S.H. Smith Tourist Home," visitors included musicians Cab Calloway, Father Divine, and Duke Ellington.
After Smith’s death in 1955, her daughter, Delores Hiller Frazier, continued this legacy while also renting out the second floor to civil rights activist Beatrice McKnight and her family. Frazier and her husband, Benjamin, one of eight African American men to desegregate the Columbia Fire Department, enrolled their son, Jablanski, and daughter, Cheryl, in Hand Middle School in 1964, where they became part of the first class of children to desegregate Columbia’s public schools. This residence remained in the family until 2019.
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Former S.H. Smith Tourist Home, 2018. Historic Columbia collection
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Members of the Smith family photographed by Richard Samuel Roberts, 1920s. Standing, left to right: Simmie Hiller Smith, John Henry Hiller, Bernice Hiller Frambro. Seated, left to right: Samuel Hiller, Alice Kessler Hiller, Benjamin Hiller. Image courtesy Delores Frazier
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929 Pine Street, undated. Image courtesy Delores Frazier
