Columbia, the capital of South Carolina

Charleston

For more than a century, South Carolina was governed from Charleston, founded as Charles Town in 1670 and moved to its peninsula by 1680. During the Revolution the British occupied the city from May 1780 to December 1782, and the state government operated in exile; the General Assembly met at Jacksonborough in January and February 1782.

Choosing the middle

After the war, South Carolinians of the upcountry, far from the coast, demanded a capital closer to them. In 1786 the General Assembly voted to move the seat of government away from Charleston to a more central location. State commissioners bought land near the geographic center of the state, and a new city was laid out from scratch that year, with main avenues 150 feet wide and other streets 100 feet wide. It was named Columbia, for Christopher Columbus.

Lowcountry politicians resisted the move, and the legislature kept meeting in Charleston for several more years. It finally held its first session in Columbia’s new wooden State House in January 1790.

Fifty years of building

The present State House was a long time coming. Construction began in December 1851, and John R. Niernsee took over the design in 1854. The Civil War halted the work, and on February 17, 1865, Union troops under General William T. Sherman reached Columbia; Union artillery struck the unfinished building, and brass markers on its west and southwest walls now show where the shells hit. When the Confederate government fled the city in 1865, it was a brief end-of-war flight; the provisional government that followed met in Columbia.

Work resumed after the war under a series of architects. Frank Milburn added the dome and the north and south porticoes between 1900 and 1903, and the building was declared finished in 1903, more than 50 years after it was begun, under its last architect, Charles C. Wilson.

Renovation

From 1995 to 1998 the State House was renovated, adding modern safety systems, earthquake base isolators and access for people with disabilities.

Visiting

Guided tours are offered on weekdays and Saturdays, each beginning with a short film on the building’s history and architecture. See the State House visitor page for times.