Why Columbia, SC Is So Unique: History, Neighborhoods, and Growth Explained

What makes Columbia, SC such a special place to live and why are so many people choosing to call it home?

In this episode of the Soda Citizen Podcast, Brad Allen and Mary Lane Sloan sit down with John Sherrer of Historic Columbia to break down the history, architecture, and evolution of the city in a way that actually makes sense.

From Columbia’s beginnings as America’s first planned capital city to the neighborhoods and home styles you see today, this conversation covers how the past has shaped the way we live here now and where the city is headed next.

They also dive into:

• Why historic preservation actually increases property values
• How the Bailey Bill can benefit homeowners
• The evolution of Columbia’s neighborhoods (from streetcar suburbs to ranch homes)
• Growth on Main Street and along the Congaree River
• What makes Columbia such a livable, welcoming city

Whether you’re a longtime local, new to the area, or just curious about Columbia, this episode gives you a deeper understanding of the city and why it continues to grow.

🎙️ The Soda Citizen Podcast highlights the people, places, and stories that make life in Columbia, SC so special.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

All right, y'all. Welcome back to our next episode of the Soda Citizen podcast. I'm your host, Brad Allen, with my awesome co-host, Mary Lane Sloan. Can I call you co-host or co-pilot?

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Just anything. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 0:11

So obviously, this is for people in the Greater Midlands Columbia market about what it's like to live here. But if you're not living here already, keep watching because this is all about information you're going to need to know. Good guest today, good friends. Sometimes John Schur is uh the head director, the head director. I'm just, yeah, it's on your body.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

We're just gonna give you all the titles you want.

SPEAKER_04 0:30

Director of Preservation. Yeah, head director of preservation. We're taking over that one. So he is all nerd, all Columbia, all historic stuff. And and some other stuff. Other stuff. Yeah. You know, you're like a regular on the podcast. It's been a while, but I'm glad to be back.

SPEAKER_03 0:44

It's always wonderful to see y'all and work with y'all. So yeah, let's rock and roll.

SPEAKER_04 0:48

Yeah, so obviously Historic Columbia is near and dear to our heart because I think y'all do some of the best stuff when it comes to preserving, obviously, the history. I'm just being really redundant on history, Historic Columbia.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Well, but also I think people can sometimes get a bad taste for like preserving history. Like, does that just automatically mean we can't do anything to the historic stuff downtown? Is that you're like the limitation police? And I don't think that that is what you do at all.

SPEAKER_03 1:12

So not clear your name. So to be fair, um a lot of folks I think um think that preservation, historic preservation is antithetical to um smart growth. And it's actually the opposite. Um how do we know this? Well, um, it's not just anecdotal information. We had an economic impact study that we commissioned uh and published over a year ago. Um, and it proves that if you are a client who purchases a property in a historic neighborhood that has certain historic uh overlays and whatnot, the value of your property actually increases uh significantly compared to other houses and non-historic markets. I probably should have read that. Yeah, no. Okay, I have a I have a lot of graphics. Graphics are good, so I can provide you with those. Yes, colors, lots of colors, colors, high charts, and little people and dollar signs. I like those. Let's make an emojis.

SPEAKER_04 2:09

Um so here's the thing I I love. I got so obviously I love history, and I think Columbia's got a great um kind of just well, it's done a lot of the major things in the history for the country, right? So, but the cool part is like we don't have like the way, way back history because you know old Sterman came through and destroyed most of it, right? So when people ask about Columbia, but I'm just saying, like people go like, what's up, like what's Columbia? Like, well, we don't have a lot of super old stuff because that shit got burned down. So it's kind of a weird mix of like historic am I wrong? So you're wrong. Um, but I never four years really from America.

SPEAKER_03 2:47

So well, first off, I I would like to say that you have quote unquote history and you have prehistory, and our prehistory is significant because the Columbia area um was a natural crossroads um of cultures. So when you think of um pre-European settlement, yeah, uh when you think of Native Americans, America's first people, they are here in Colombia. Right. Um Colombia uh is not a city until um you know 1786. So that's a pretty big deal. Um it is the first planned city in the United States, first planned capital. A lot of people go, well, you know, how about Philadelphia or how about Savannah? Like, yeah, they're older and they're planned, but we weren't the United States then. Right. So got them. So 1786, Columbia's a big deal. Um, we're three years uh older than Washington. Uh we've been doing it better in some ways in Washington. Yeah. Um, so when you know, when people come here from away, like as we like to say, um, if they're living in the downtown area or if they're just working or recreating or whatever, oh wait, it feels natural because they've come from maybe the Midwest. It's like a grid system, right? Like there you go.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 3:59

Um, so I love Columbia from that. Yeah, right. Exactly, exactly. And not too many one-way streets here. Yeah. Not like Charleston. True. Yeah. Um, but uh no, we're uh we're a a significant place um, obviously in the state of South Carolina is the second state capital, Charleston being the first, um, but in the nation. Um, and we are a market that is growing. Uh, and it's not just um in housing, but also in you know other opportunities as well. Sure.

SPEAKER_04 4:27

And you know, we we do a lot throughout the Southeast. And so a lot of the cities that we work in, the the Augustas, the the Knoxville's, they don't have like a similar, like a vibe. It's all very hodgepodge. You can tell the different decades that came through. And I feel like Columbia didn't go like we've had this like natural, just uh you can probably describe the type of buildings better. I'm not gonna, I'm not that dumb to give you the descriptions because who like DM me like that's not a bungalow, Brad.

SPEAKER_03 4:52

Like you so I you know what we need to do?

SPEAKER_00 4:56

We need to make an architectural tour.

SPEAKER_03 4:58

We're going to do that, we're going to do a an outing. We're gonna have an outing. Oh, no, you're gonna get a fun bus.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:04

And all of the staff is gonna hop on and we're going to go through the downtown and some of the early neighborhoods, and we're gonna talk about the evolution, the architectural evolution, the story arc, if you would, uh-huh, from the earliest properties, the Siebel's house. Yeah. That's our our course our our headquarters at Historic Columbia. Um, and then we'll take it all the way up to what I like to call kind of the the neo bungalow. That's yeah, yeah. So we'll I don't even know what that means, but I'm down. Yeah, yeah. So we'll uh we'll have fun. Okay. And um it'll be a continuing education.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Part two of the podcast is post-field trip. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:39

There you go. There you go. Well, we can go. So we're working on a a new project for videos, and we're calling we're calling it cart talks right now, but we'll see. We're gonna get golf cart. Oh. We've already got plans. Like we're gonna have cameras strapped up on it, facing in, facing out, and we're gonna go through neighborhoods and just talk. So I think we'll get a four-steeder, put John in the back.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

Cash cab. Pick people up and just ask them questions. For real.

SPEAKER_04 5:59

Like that's what we actually are playing that out right now. Like, because everybody likes neighborhood videos, but they're all similar downtown. I mean, we can tell the difference because we resell, but like if you just drive through them like, oh man, Melbourne's Heights to you know, uh Heathwood is very similar. Where's the line? But I can tell you where the line is.

SPEAKER_03 6:15

I can tell you that you actually have to go through um uh Oaklawn. You have to go through Oaklawn to get to Heathwood. All right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

And most people are not.

SPEAKER_03 6:25

Heathwood North isn't really Heathwood North, it's really Kilburn Heights. Talk about that.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

I know.

SPEAKER_03 6:30

There are nuances. All right, well, I'll be more than per passenger. Yeah, absolutely. Get a mute button for getting back to it. Can we get the part that has like big wheels on it? Yeah, yeah, okay. I mean, does it have to have gamecock stuff on it?

unknown 6:42

No.

SPEAKER_04 6:42

Okay, but it's gonna have hog scooters, so that's gonna be our sponsors. Oh, cool. So they're gonna let us know. Yeah, so we're gonna be like tricked out. Yeah, it won't. It'll just have hog scooters labeled but yeah, uh look for us in your neighborhood.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

All right, all right. I love that.

SPEAKER_04 6:58

It'll be the history machine. There we go.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

History machine. I love it. There you go.

SPEAKER_04 7:01

I love it. All right, so now describe the the feeling of the the architecture for Columbia. If you had to like kind of put a title to it.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

Like fourth grade level. Fourth grade level.

SPEAKER_03 7:11

Okay, well, so let's um let's do this. Okay. Um, we'll keep it simple. So you did mention, of course, uh this kind of watershed era in Columbia's history, and that would have been uh February of 1865. About one-third of the city was um damaged or burned during the tail end of the Civil War, uh, during a brief occupation. Um, that uh watershed moment um pretty much kind of left this indelible mark, obviously, on the psyche of the city for the people who were living then and really folks all the way up to the present who say, oh, well, there's no history in Colombia or there's nothing left, or so forth and so on. And we quickly point out that um there was more uh change rendered to Columbia a hundred years later, quite frankly, during urban renewal. All right. So um, but if we were on Main Street, there's nothing on Main Street that predates 1865. Okay. Okay. Okay, fine. So when you want to perhaps go and get maybe the the vibe for the earliest buildings, um, I'd suggest you take me out to dinner at Bourbon. We'll talk a little bit about the architecture there. It's great. Christian Dimer runs a wonderful uh ship there. Go all the way up into the 1600 block, 1700 block, and you're gonna see some of those buildings that were um erected uh 1865, 18, uh late 1860s, 1870s, during the reconstruction period. Uh so physical reconstruction, but also kind of reconstructing um in far more other ways, political, social, uh, etc. Um and then but on but if you were on Main Street alone, you would see the evolution of essentially um you know 200 years worth of 150 years worth of architecture there. Okay. So we'll go through um mid-century modern, we'll go through Art Deco, you go to the Nick, great Art Deco theater, right? Say, oh that's 1936. The facade is and the interior, but the building itself 1870s. So that kind of thing. So when we look at um how the city has evolved over time, we do have these touchstones to certain uh very discernible periods in in architecture.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Is there anything in particular that you're like just super proud of from a historical, you know, point of view that the city has done well or a treasure that we have that you're just particularly proud of?

SPEAKER_03 9:30

Um I would say yes, on a lot of different fronts. Um one of the things that I always champion is um kind of the power of um historic districts. Um I I look um not only at the residential districts, but certainly at um what was City Center Partnership now uh Main Street District. Um without that kind of leadership, you would not see what we have on um on Main Street and on the uh kind of ancillary or um um you know parallel streets. So think of Assembly, think of course Sumter and so forth. Um look to um the University Hill neighborhood, Earlwood, Cottontown, Elmwood Park, um Hollywood Rose Hills, all of those earlier uh neighborhoods have really strong um uh neighborhood associations, people who value um their history uh and the architecture in many cases. Um, I think what the city has done well is provide incentives. Um and and one of the things that I champion all the time is the fact that the the city um has kind of signed on with other entities throughout the state um with the Bailey Bill. Oh yeah, Bailey Bill tax abatement is an incredible resource.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

They do not realize the incremental.

SPEAKER_03 10:53

Sure, sure. So let's let's just say that you have a property in a district um that would be considered a contributing property, so architecturally contributing, um, and it needs a lot of work. Oh, I bought this house and it's gonna need a roof and it needs new plumbing, and I need to repair the windows. Right, right, right. I need to repoint the brick. I may need some, you know, some work on the porch or whatever. Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Because the point is not just to renovate the house, but it is to maintain the historical integrity of the structure. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 11:21

And and in doing so, if you find that you're going to hit a certain um uh threshold of expense, right, you can apply for um what is known as the Bailey bill. It's a tax abatement that allows you to freeze the taxable base of that property for 20 years. Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

And so in doing so at the value priority, rehabilitation value. So please elaborate this far get excited.

SPEAKER_03 11:53

If if I were just starting out, or if you know I were perhaps um uh scaling back and I was getting a smaller house as maybe an empty nester, I would look for a building in a historic district that would qualify for this. And I'd say, I want to do you know, these improvements. Here are the guidelines. You work with incredibly talented city staff who will take you through the process. Um, and you end up with a unique home that has architectural value, historical value, um, and it it's it's modern. Your systems are modern. Now it's not gonna pay for like the light fixtures, it's not gonna pay for your own.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Yeah, but the savings in your tax bill, Adam, you can pay for all that.

SPEAKER_03 12:38

Absolutely. And that's something that if you said, well, I did all this, but I want to move, it's transferable to the next property owner. And it's good for 20 years. So that is an amazing thing. And you can couple that with potentially um tax credits from the state as well, you know, depending on what it is. So um those are that's where the that's where the rubber meets the road. Yeah. I mean, that like you know, let's talk dollars and cents. That makes a lot of sense and it saves you a lot of dollars.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

And for people who get a little nervous about jumping into it, they're like, oh, like the house I live in is a hundred years old, you know. Like I love an older home, but for some people that are a little bit nervous, I do think that helps kind of take the the sting out of it because you're like, hey, I have a financial like gain I could get from tackling one of these bad boys, you know.

SPEAKER_04 13:24

Too bad I went in the city for my mid-century modern.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Too bad. Too bad. So sad. Oh well.

SPEAKER_04 13:31

You need a good realtor to tell you where you should have bought. I need to. Because my wife does say that's her realtor. She's like, I need a realtor. I'm gonna call Mary Lynn. I don't blame her. I don't blame her. Yeah. So when we get back to the the historical side of it, like the the historic overlays, they're not just a complete blanket, though. Because I I own a house in Merrill's Heights that is a 1940s, but it's not, doesn't have a historical overlay where it is, and but some houses do. Is it like block by block or is it house by house? How does how does that get decided?

SPEAKER_03 14:00

So some of the buildings um that you would go through in a neighborhood and you'll say, Oh, well, that one, the windows look different. They're modern replacements. I don't get it. Those would have been grandfathered in at a certain period, right? Um, there are certain properties that would not necessarily be considered contributing because, say, the period of significance ends and needs. Let me replace my windows first, please. We'll find out where we are. That's the wonderful thing about uh Richland Online and providing it. But um, but no, when I think about like um uh the the different districts, there may be buildings that fall outside the period significance. So if it were like National Register nomination or national register district, which Melrose Heights, Oaklawn Fairview is, um, it's also it has the highest level of um kind of uh protection locally, which is an architectural conservation district, as opposed to a community character overlay. It's a little different.

SPEAKER_04 15:00

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_03 15:01

Um so there are different things, and this isn't like big city coming in or big big um government coming in telling you what to do. This is homegrown. Yeah, yeah. The people who lived in the neighborhood in the neighborhoods, they found the value in this and they wanted to keep what is special. So you don't have a cookie cutter in existence. Yeah. So um, yeah, and and it speaks to um not just the I think the warm fuzzies for the history side of things, it's also, you know, obviously environmental impact.

SPEAKER_04 15:30

Yeah. So let's talk about windows real quick. So that's always been the big stickler, right? Like you can't, so there has to be new modern replicas that could look good. So for instance, they're probably like 500 times the cost though.

SPEAKER_03 15:42

No, they're not. They're not. So for instance, let's just say that you have a 1928 bungalow, and that 1928 bungalow has four over ones. So that's the you know, that's the four window panes over the one, right? And you have uh a window that um needs to be perhaps replicated because you're gonna go up into that first or the second story where you had an unimproved attic and you say, Well, we want to put this in so we have some light, and it's gonna be a bedroom. We want to do a paired window, it's gonna be a three over one, and you look at it and say, Okay, well, um, you can do that. It's gonna be let's go with extruded aluminum over a wood frame window. Okay. All right. I've done that on two occasions. Um, that is something that's perfectly legit. It works great. What it is not is one over one white vinyl windows that are antithetical to the character of the building. So um it's not draconian. Um there are other opportunities that you can go with. I've gone with just wood windows too. Yeah. Um depends on what you want.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Um, but uh I think it's funny when people move here from, especially out west and up north, and they immediately want to know did the windows open? I'm like, it doesn't really matter if they open or not, because there's only like one week out of the year that you could open them and nothing yellow is gonna blow in. So, you know, you just you just hang tight and you let me know how many times you actually open those windows.

SPEAKER_03 17:05

I will say this. I will say this.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Are you a window opener?

SPEAKER_03 17:09

I am.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Oh, okay. I'm a window opener, but now how many days a year?

SPEAKER_03 17:13

Oh, I mean, you know, I we have about I'd say three months that you can get away with it, and it's nice. You do get a little pollen.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_03 17:23

I mean, you can be smart.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

These people that are coming from where there's no pollen, but you're gonna put it in the middle of the phone.

SPEAKER_03 17:27

So like today, if it were warm enough, which it really is, I mean, you could open a window and there's not gonna be any pollen because all of the rain has just settled it down, right? Right. Yeah, um, I love a double-hung sash.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

You would love a double hung sash. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 17:42

I am a proponent of the double hung sash, particularly when you can drop that top, right? Yeah, and you get that you get the breeze through there. Put your attic fan on.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

I will say I have a back screen door that has that where the top can come down. I will do that a lot, but I'm not going around opening my windows. Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_03 18:00

Well, it ties you to your beautiful garden. It don't much better.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 18:05

Okay. She has a huge garden out back. Yeah, it really does. Yeah. You don't. You're a garden person.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

No, my husband is a garden person.

SPEAKER_04 18:13

Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

So I'm at the maximum of organisms I can keep elaborating. Yeah. Do not bring me a plant unless it's the beam's flat trap because it's on its own. Gotcha. All right. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 18:23

Well, that was fun. Um touchy subject. Yeah, no doubt. Therapy issue.

SPEAKER_04 18:28

Um, as the next podcast. Let's talk about um the evolution of Columbia. I mean, obviously, you started when it became state capital, but there's been a lot of history from the world wars and that the how the houses have changed one over time.

SPEAKER_03 18:41

So let's start from the beginning. Um, if you want to. No, not I mean like not that very beginning. Okay. So 1786. Um, where do you think the center of Columbia is?

SPEAKER_04 18:56

Ooh, center of Columbia, 1786. It is on the corner of Lady and Taylor Street. Those don't even cross. No. No. I was like, just trying to cut road.

SPEAKER_03 19:04

You're tired. It's okay. I'm on Vegas myself. No, no, no, no, no, no. So the original city limits, okay. Original city limits, yeah. Upper street is Elmwood Avenue. Okay. Lower street is Hayward. Oh. Eastern uh is Harden Street, and then the west is kind of wishy-washy because it's really the river. Yeah, right. So it's a two mile by two mile grid. All right. The epicenter of the state and of Columbia is at the intersection of Assembly and Senate streets. Okay. Today we go, oh, it's at the intersection of Gervais and Maine, formerly Gervais and Richardson Street. Um, the reason that it was kind of moved to that point, the main district, uh, that is Main Street, um, is because it was geographically higher and had better drainage than Assembly and Senate. That makes sense. People tended to get mired at Assembly and Senate, which, you know, that's kind of funny in a way. Um but that's uh that's an old joke, but it's one that we've had since about 1780. So there you go. Um if you were to look at some of the initial growth beyond the two mile by two mile grid, you're going to start seeing um the suburbanization of Columbia in the the Waverley area, all right. So kind of that north uh east area, east section, um, just above Taylor Street and slightly below Taylor Street at Bay, right? Um you're gonna see, of course, Shandon. People often think about Shandon, Elmwood Park, right? Elmwood Park's like 1904 or so. Um you're gonna see the the mill district. So when we think of the mill district, we're like, oh, okay, well, Olympia Gramby, which is kind of conveniently um above the northern or the the southern city limit, okay, originally. And then most of it is below it, right? And so the mills were physically below the city limit. And so you do have today even still some of that in unincorporated British county, right? Um but you start thinking about what is it taking to get people out of the two mile by two mile grid? You know, if you're not living on uh Plain Street, which is now Hampton Street, if you're not living on Sumter Street or or Assembly or maybe up in um Arsenal Hill, how are you getting to these places? Well, you're gonna get there via our electric streetcar. So the um the electric streetcar uh essentially comes in into the in the late 1890s and it runs until about 1928, at which point it's starting to get eclipsed by buses, right? And then it's in the um, I think it's about 1935 or 36 that the last uh streetcar issue. But those streetcar communities um are those early suburbs. And it's really, really cool because if you're doing research, say, for instance, on a property maybe on on Middwood or on Fairview Drive or something, it'll say, you know, beautiful uh home, blah, blah, blah. This many bedrooms, one bath, two. um grove of pecan trees, blah, blah, blah, one block for the car line.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

Right.

SPEAKER_03 22:06

And so you're like, oh, okay, well it's a one block to walk to jump on my mass transit to get me downtown. Because of course people are going down for the most part to go to work. And and so that's your first generation suburb, the ring, you know, the concentric rings. You're going out to Eau Claire, you're going out to um you know areas that are even beyond that. Then you have second generation suburb. So think of oh okay we're looking at Kilburn Heights and then we're starting to go into forest acres across the river and the beyond that. And then with of course the interstate system um established after World War II, we're really gonna take them out we're gonna take them out to the northeast we're gonna take them out to the southeast um and now we're starting growing out into lower Richmond County and then everybody growing out of course across the river into Lexington. So um but when you see one of um kind of the the biggest impacts um is of course the establishment of Camp Jackson later for Jackson. All right. So it's a huge chunk of the real estate which we got back right a great deal of real estate that's out there um that's obviously not being developed quite the way everything else is um but what it's producing is not just um soldiers uh and and leaders but also folks who are retirees too so they're coming um to Colombia maybe for training back maybe they're stationed here but they're getting to know Colombia and like place I'm gonna retire here.

SPEAKER_04 23:41

It is very clear I like Columbia I make a living by selling Columbia I love Columbia. But I get people that move back retirees they've been to Hawaii they've been to all these places like I'm gonna retire in Columbia and so it's kind of one confusing but also very heartwarming it's like you're coming back to little Columbia you've been all over the world and you want to come here stuff well we do so I will say this um I I was born and raised in Columbia I I went to high school here I left to go to school in God's country um that's in Clemson um I was yeah um you know there for for grad school um and then I moved down to Charleston I lived in Charleston for a while and then I moved up to New England.

SPEAKER_03 24:20

Did not think I'd ever come back to Columbia. Came back in 96 um went to USC got a master's in public history there that's when I started working in historic Columbia so August of 96 yeah yeah still there you go um I never thought I'd stay in Columbia but Columbia in and became a during that time a for me a very livable city. Right um I told myself if I'm coming back to Columbia I'm not going to live like I did before which was you know um in Forest Acres. Forest acres is great. I'd love to live in your mouth I know venture mouse but I grew up there so I wanted something I wanted something where I could literally walk to class or walk you know to work if I wanted to and that's what I was able to do downtown. And and and so I found that it was a very very um livable city it was it was affordable um there were amenities then that were I'll say just good enough to keep me here but I was able to um participate in things that made a difference to make the you know the capital city that much better. And so um Columbia's a great place where even small people can have big impacts.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:27

So yeah you've you've raised a family here you've you've you've lived your life here so like what do people need to know about in your mind if they're like hey I'm through a dart I'm coming to Columbia what do I do that you know they do oh no yeah yeah um so for all the dart throwers I I would say that you you have um you legitimately have people who will welcome you with open arms um to the city uh to to experiencing things here because we're proud of it yeah right um and there are things to do if you have um young kids there are things to do if you have you know teenagers um if you have college kids I mean some some folks stay here um if you are empty nesters if you're young professional um there's enough in Columbia to really keep you busy 365. So you know years ago people said there's nothing to I'm like yeah whose whose calendar are you looking on? It was just like I'm sorry but there's too much for me to do and actually and and and what I love about it is there's enough to do where I can always meet new people but I have the opportunity to potentially run into really close friends. Yeah which is cool. Yeah you know um um lunchtime yeah lunchtime and there are really a lot of great places to go to eat uh yeah I like how you did that there you go yeah um but no I and yeah some people say oh Columbia is perfectly you know situated geographically because you're two hours from the coast and two hours from the mountains and I say yes and you're absolutely zero miles from where home can be yeah you know right so I tell you one thing yeah if it's hot it's August you're gonna find me on the river tubing down yeah three hours of uninterrupted much cooler uh huh temps and and entertainment and just fun stuff you go past the river I'm sorry past the the zoo that's a great place um have you done the new gondola I haven't yet I haven't yet I want to do that so it looks really fun my high schooler just did it so it was a lot of yeah yeah I want to do that um it's just a gondola isn't it it's not just a gondola you're getting over a really wonderful body of water let's talk about the history of the river John okay no but we are gonna have somebody on the on the podcast that's gonna talk about the development on the river so being on the historic preservation side I mean what do you hope that looks like or how are you all going to help control that so this is super cool because just yesterday I had the opportunity to be part of a design charret uh for a design charrette bunch of people talking about fifth grade boards thank you thank you we're just people talking about what we'd like to see uh in the development of Riverfront Park you know about 80 acres worth of um there right and so um I had the opportunity to um uh be with a number of individuals who represented the Girl Scouts and the arts community and and you know ecological concerns and whatnot and we're like what do you want to see for this 80 plus acre park and um it was so cool because I was like well when we're looking at this don't look at the park as necessarily going to the park via the land think about what's it going to look like when you're coming off the river right um and so one of the things I said is if I'm somewhere I want to know what was here I want to know um the history of it yeah and so while we do have some wayside interpretive signage on both sides of the the river um I said I'd like to see I'd like to see a little bit more um why is this significant why is this in a natural setting for all intents and purposes as opposed to other areas that were developed over time um so yeah yeah no because it used to be a navigable like am I wrong was it used to be like a navigal river so we're on the fall line right um this is the area uh in the state where the river ceased to be navigable because of the rocks uh we were able to circumvent that initially by portaging you know moving stuff physically out of your boat taking across land then getting across you know beyond the rocks then we said okay let's put a canal through there so we did that um through you know Irish labor came here in the 1920s or 1820s rather and uh you had a a navigable waterway that way and then you're like oh you know what we're gonna bring in the railroads like everybody else but we're gonna bring in the railroads and then the canal gets abandoned in favor of that um but what you have here is a really really cool area of the state where you've got you know class three class four rapids in certain areas that's not just a local or a state draw that's a national international draw um and you know you have this natural setting where uh you get a chance to see all the turtles and all the lilies and it's great hiking and uh cycling it has stimulated people's um investment and interest you have amazing things that have been done uh for instance uh with the the Boyd Foundation Boyd Island and all the improvements that we're talking about in terms of creating 27 miles worth of pedestrian and bike linkage yeah I mean that's a big deal that's pretty darn that's pretty darn cool yeah you know so it just keeps getting better yeah it just keeps getting better yeah no I agree um so let's kind of take us on the the the housing designs of World War War World War I and World War II like post war how that affected our our the forest acres area stuff like that because we do we have some bungalow style but then we got a bunch of ranches oh yeah and some God bless tri-levels love tri-levels it's like the actually that's like a feat of engineering it's like hey we have ranch style houses they're flat but now we have a hill what do we do it's like hell let's just throw half a half a thing underneath it now we got a tri level yeah amazing love it love tri levels um okay so we sell tri levels by the way yes I was like there goes there goes that chunk of audience um well let's take a look at um you said world war the world war so let's look at world war one all right so here it is it's 1918 we have camp jackson up and running our uh first generation suburbs are you know they're fully established at this point I am leaving my office uh downtown Columbia and I'm hopping on you know maybe the electric streetcar or maybe I'm in my car maybe I'm walking I don't know and um I get to my bungalow kind of traditional bungalow when you think about oh it's like that's what you see in California. Well bungalows were ubiquitous throughout the United States at that point it's kind of every person's cottage or every person's house. And then you have the cottages which look different higher pitched roofs and so forth. Um American Four Squares, just your boxes and stuff like that, your colonial revivals your eclectic revival so think about maybe going down Fairview Drive. There's a lot of different looking buildings right um and then if you're on Shirley Street you get to see the the Powell House and that is the most pure example of prairie style architecture. So think Frank Lloyd Wright you know Chicago so forth and so on. We're moving beyond that it's 1946 and we're going with what's known as a minimal traditional or men trading. Mintrad so some of the housing forms that you saw before but you're not having perhaps um as most uh the roof lines are changing you don't have as much molding things are simpler and then that starts to morph into your ranch style and the cool thing about Columbia in terms of ranches is you have um what I would call kind of spec ranches right um a lot of them are you're like that form looks very familiar. I'm seeing that in this neighborhood and that neighborhood not necessarily identical right but very much you know predictable and then you have your um genuine architect one ofs and they are found um not just in Forest Acres though that that's a big area but in Kilburn Heights and of course in areas in the northeast um and and and uh the northwest of here um and then of course when you end up with the ranch style after that then it's you know 1980s 1990s 2000s so forth you start seeing um housing forms that are kind of pulling little elements here and there that were found in earlier um earlier properties but for instance if you say well I have a bungalow all right there may be bungalow features on something that was built in 1995 or 2000 but that bungalow if it were historic it wouldn't have a front facing double garage where the biggest element of no there's anything wrong with that but in terms of you know your sophistication when it comes to like the the history of it is like oh okay well this is later you know these are the elements that someone valued and they wanted it and that they also wanted to have you know a place that would be for their vehicles right so forth yeah yeah so we uh to kind of wrap this up we got a couple last things so one is any big projects Historic Columbia is working on or are they just keeping on preserving? We are keeping on keeping on but we're very excited to announce that in May right here exclusive May 14th can be um is our 50th anniversary of our historic preservation awards so we've been doing it since 1976 although we've been around since 1961 um so this is a big deal we're gonna be um uh celebrating that uh and not just looking at all the successes and victories but also being very frank about you know the losses in terms of the uh the historic fabric uh that we're working with so we've had some some properties in the past I say we as a city as a county um that have uh unfortunately been demolished yeah um again you can't save them all but you can certainly know what you have and in knowing what you have then you can make informed decisions as to how are we going to integrate this into smart growth for the rest of the city. Yeah um where are we going forward and it's that's actually what our um tagline is it's 50 forward we're not just looking 50 past Historic Columbia is an entity that looks at local history and historic preservation um and provides that through heritage tourism uh adult programs uh we're in the classroom so forth and so on but we're also looking about where are we going to be in 50 years right so believe it or not you're old enough now to be in the national register I'm old enough now to be in the national register you've had so much time have a birthday next week but uh but no in all seriousness um we need to think about what are the elements that we value right currently in our capital city and what can we do to preserve those for the next generation or two.

SPEAKER_04 35:54

Well not only that but I think y'all have a great uh social network as well. Y'all do so many great events and we've been able to be a part of those in the past and it's like one people love history.

SPEAKER_01 36:03

Yeah. Something like that.

SPEAKER_04 36:04

Yeah and y'all have been very supportive and cool people love you guys.

SPEAKER_03 36:08

So there you go. No but you've got I mean I don't know what's on the slate this year but we've we partook in uh there was a Civil War balloon water balloon fight reenactment back in the day um it was a water balloon several years ago but it was we were actually in partnership with some um drill sergeants from Fort Jackson and it was military tactics over over the generation we had to march in a line it was weird I don't know like I hit in the face with a balloon yeah be good for you but no it's it was good stuff. I mean like it's fun to hang out it's a it's a especially if because you have two different groups right well we have we have a lot of different uh folks who um who participate Historic Columbia literally from like the youngest to the eldest um one of the things that we do do I think that your um or our guests uh would be interested in is is uh walking tours we've got walking tours of historic districts um we have um programs that are um local history uh we have programs that are um really super cool in terms of our horticultural work so you come to this is beautiful yeah the the um the Boyd Horticultural Center at the Hampton Preston site is an amazing property um concert in the gardens come and listen to music in a beautiful garden yeah um we have oasis you know not the band yeah no not like we don't really have oasis in there but we have these do we have these oases um in downtown Columbia where you can walk from you know Main Street maybe you've gone you've seen a really wonderful show at the CMA yeah you've gone to Lula Drake and you've had you know James Beard Award uh glass of wine and and just hospitality yeah walk a couple blocks to the east and see some of the most beautiful gardens yeah and you will see things in our gardens that you cannot find anywhere else in the state or even in some of the um uh tri-state area don't pick them don't pick them don't pick them because that is a living collection that's right that's a curated collection yes and we want to make sure that um everything that you enjoy the next person can enjoy that's right so we like to ask all our guests like if you had like the ultimate Saturday yeah in downtown Columbia what would it look like? Well the ultimate Saturday would be waking up early making sure that Brad is working out with me at an early morning workout group pure lead that'd be good. And then after that I'm probably gonna go to honestly probably like cinnamon roll deli and get like a breakfast bowl because that's really good. I'm going to do something outside uh whether it's working or just something I I'm a guy who needs a product right um that might be um two hours worth of yard work whatever I don't know the nice thing about our climate is pretty much all year round you can be outside pretty much 355 days um and then I'm probably gonna go see um some type of um activity like maybe Soda City walk down there look at some of the stuff that's available whether it's food maybe eat a little bit more good like that. Yeah um I'm probably gonna go try to find a place outside that I can socialize whether it's maybe it's craft and draft maybe it's weeko someplace like that beer color someplace where there's a lot of energy um then I'm gonna start thinking about all right what's the afternoon going to look like no I really probably need to like lay off all those calories. No I'm not gonna nap. I'm gonna fight that and I'm gonna go you know I'm gonna go out to Congere or maybe harvesting or maybe down on the river walk and get some you know yeah get those calories burning um after that I'm gonna think well all right now it's time to do something fun again maybe go see something at the uh at the Nick maybe take in um a sporting event where people can do it much better than I ever thought I could hopefully do. Game clock football I mean sure absolutely incredible athletes or baseball right um and then uh you know I didn't say anything about historic columbia but I work there but I would say the best experience would be to come and enjoy our gardens bring somebody that's not from Columbia and and show them a good time um doing something with Historic Columbia obviously um and then uh Sunday do it all over again do it all over again yeah yeah that sounds like a great Saturday yeah but it starts really with with me as all great days do my wife is a lucky woman every day is a good day for her hashtag all right John well as always we appreciate we're gonna have to figure out this cart talk thing because I think we got I think we got something I like to go back to the party bus. We can do a party bus yeah party bus architecture I think that would be good okay we'll figure it out but um continuing education yes continuing it big words yeah um but yeah as always thanks for being a good advocate in the city no it's always a pleasure spending time with y'all and that's good and we really appreciate the partnerships part of real estate thanks