President William Howard Taft visited Columbia in 1910. This post card view from the State House grounds during the Taft visit shows an extensive vista up Main Street as well. The building on the left is Columbia's third City Hall and Opera House, at the corner of Main and Gervais Streets, built in 1900; the city sold the property in 1936 and the building was replaced by the Wade Hampton Hotel, which was itself demolished in 1985. The National Loan and Exchange Building (later known as the Berringer Building) in the right background was Columbia's first skyscraper in 1903.
Courtesy of the Howard G. Woody Postcard Collection.
