The resulting investment led to some of the city’s largest construction projects of the 20th Century — including many of Main Street’s office towers and much of the western edge of USC’s downtown campus.
Frames mark the outlines of buildings that once stood on the Mann-Simons site in Columbia.
CALEB BOZARD / STAFF
But the development also displaced many historic structures and often targeted lower-income and predominantly non-White communities, Halberg said. Many of those neighborhoods contained many cottages.
Around 75 percent of the Columbia cottages built in the city no longer stood by 2015, Halberg wrote at the time.
“I think what that means is the ones that do survive are even more important to recognize and preserve,” she said.
There hasn’t been any major additional loss of the surviving buildings since then, Sherrer said.
Despite the homes being similar in prominence in the city as iconic home styles in other cities like Charleston and New Orleans, the Columbia cottage hasn’t seen the same recognition.
Halberg attributed some of this to Columbia’s later adoption of historic preservation movements than those cities. The style’s less formal definition, simpler form and resemblance to other homes may have also played a role, she said.
A Historic Columbia marker outside of the Mann-Simons site, which includes a surviving example of a Columbia cottage-style house.
CALEB BOZARD / STAFF
“People, I think, maybe have overlooked it, as you know, maybe not as important,” she said. “I think it’s kind of unfortunate that it’s not more popular and people don’t sort of recognize it more than they do.”
Most of the surviving homes have been repurposed as commercial properties or businesses, like the Maxcy Gregg House at 1518 Richland St., which now houses law offices.
Some, like the Mann-Simons Site at 1403 Richland St., have been preserved as museums.
Historic Columbia offers tours at the Mann-Simons site. One home, a Columbia cottage, remains on the site. Markers indicate the locations of other buildings on the property that do not survive.