Editing Columbia, South Carolina (section)

===20th century===
{{Gallery
|title=Three images taken from the same location showing Columbia's Main Street from [[South Carolina Statehouse|Statehouse]] steps
|mode=packed
|height=200
|align=center
|File:Columbia sc ruins.jpg|Columbia in ruins after burning at the end of the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], {{circa|1865}}
|File:Columbia, SC Mainstreet (1900).jpg|Main Street with streetcars, January 1900
|File:LookingdownMainSt.jpg|Modern day Main Street, June 2010
}}

During the early 20th century, Columbia developed as a regional textile manufacturing center. In 1907, Columbia had six mills in operation: [[Richland Cotton Mill|Richland]], [[Granby Mill Village Historic District|Granby]], [[Olympia Mill|Olympia]], Capital City, Columbia, and Palmetto. Combined, they employed over 3,400 workers with an annual payroll of $819,000, giving the Midlands an economic boost of over $4.8 million. Columbia had no paved streets until 1908, when 17 blocks of Main Street were surfaced. But, it had 115 publicly maintained street crossings, boardwalks placed at intersections to keep pedestrians from having to wade through a sea of mud between wooden sidewalks. As an experiment, Washington Street was once paved with wooden blocks. This proved to be the source of much local amusement when they buckled and floated away during heavy rains. The blocks were replaced with asphalt paving in 1925.

[[File:Palmetto_Building,_1400_Main_Street_at_Washington_Street,_Columbia_(Richland_County,_South_Carolina).jpg|thumb|right|upright|[[Palmetto Building]] completed in 1913]]
[[File:Returning WWI soldiers in Columbia, South Carolina (April 1919).jpg|thumb|right|Troops returning from [[World War I]] march through Columbia, April 1919]]
[[File:Woodrow Wilson Columbia, SC home.jpg|thumb|President [[Woodrow Wilson]]'s [[Woodrow Wilson Boyhood Home (Columbia, South Carolina)|family home]]]]
[[File:President Wilson 1919.jpg|thumb|150px|[[Woodrow Wilson]], the 28th [[president of the United States]], lived in Columbia during his youth.]]
[[File:Main Street looking towards State Capitol, Columbia, SC 1910s.png|thumb|Main Street looking towards State Capitol, 1910s]]
During the years 1911 and 1912, some $2.5 million worth of construction occurred in the city, as investors used revenues generated by the mills. New projects included construction of the Union Bank Building at Main and Gervais, the [[Palmetto Building|Palmetto National Bank]], a shopping arcade, and large hotels at Main and Laurel (the Jefferson) and at Main and Wheat (the Gresham). In 1917, the city was selected by the US Army to be developed as the site of [[Fort Jackson (South Carolina)|Camp Jackson]], a U.S. military installation that was officially classified as a "Field Artillery Replacement Depot". The first recruits arrived at the camp on September 1, 1917. In the first several decades of the 20th century, white Democrats of the [[Solid South]] controlled an outsize amount of power in the House and Senate. The former Confederate states had effectively [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchised]] most blacks and many poor whites through passage of discriminatory laws and constitutions that made voter registration and voting more difficult. But they controlled all the seats in Congress related to the total state populations.

In 1930, Columbia was the hub of a trading area with about 500,000 potential customers. It had 803 retail establishments, 280 of them being food stores. The city also had 58 clothing and apparel outlets, 57 restaurants and lunch rooms, 55 filling stations, 38 pharmacies, 20 furniture stores, 19 auto dealers, 11 shoe stores, nine cigar stands, five department stores, and one book store. Wholesale distributors located within the city numbered 119, with one-third of them dealing in food.

In 1934, the federal courthouse at the corner of Main and Laurel streets was purchased by the city for use as City Hall. Built of granite from nearby [[Winnsboro, South Carolina|Winnsboro]], [[Columbia City Hall (South Carolina)|Columbia City Hall]] is listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]]. Designed by [[Alfred B. Mullett|Alfred Built Mullett]], President [[Ulysses S. Grant]]'s federal architect, the building was completed in 1876. Mullet, best known for his design of the [[Eisenhower Executive Office Building|Executive Office Building]] in Washington, DC, had originally designed the courthouse with a clock tower. It was not constructed, perhaps because of large cost overruns on the project. Copies of Millet's original drawings can be seen on the walls of City Hall alongside historic photos of other Columbia beginnings. Federal offices were moved to the new [[J. Bratton Davis United States Bankruptcy Courthouse]].

In 1940 Camp Jackson was reactivated after war started in Europe, and was designated as Fort Jackson. City leaders and the congressional delegation had lobbied to gain such a permanent military installation. In the early 1940s, shortly after the [[Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor|attack on Pearl Harbor]], which catalyzed the entry of the US into [[World War II]], Lt. Colonel [[Jimmy Doolittle]] and his group of now-famous pilots began training for the 1942 [[Doolittle Raid]] over Tokyo at what is now [[Columbia Metropolitan Airport]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Columbia Metropolitan Airport – Columbia, SC – Columbia's airport |url=http://www.columbiasouthcarolina.com/airport.html |access-date=September 14, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070322175251/http://www.columbiasouthcarolina.com/airport.html|archive-date=March 22, 2007|url-status=dead}}</ref> They trained in [[B-25 Mitchell]] bombers, the same model as the plane that is installed at Columbia's [[Owens Field]] in the [[Curtiss-Wright]] hangar.
<ref>{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20070313043541/http://www.columbiadevelopment.org/attractions_scdc.asp South Columbia Development Corporation<!-- Bot generated title -->]}}</ref>

During the 1940s African Americans increased activism for their civil rights: seeking to reverse [[Jim Crow laws]] and [[racism|racial discrimination]] that pushed them into second-class status in Columbia and the state. In 1945, a federal judge ruled that the city's black teachers were entitled to equal pay to that of their white counterparts. But, in following years, the state attempted to strip many blacks of their teaching credentials. Other issues in which the blacks of the city sought equality concerned [[suffrage|voting rights]] and [[racial segregation|segregation]] (particularly regarding public schools). In 1954, in ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'', the US Supreme Court ruled that segregated public schools were unconstitutional.

On August 21, 1962, eight downtown chain stores served blacks at their lunch counters for the first time. The University of South Carolina, a public institution, admitted its first black students in 1963. Around that same time, many vestiges of segregation began to disappear from the city: blacks attained membership on various municipal boards and commissions, and the city adopted a non-discriminatory hiring policy. These and other such signs of racial progress helped earn the city the 1964 [[All-America City Award]] for the second time (the first being in 1951). A 1965 article in ''[[Newsweek]]'' lauded Columbia as a city that had "liberated itself from the plague of doctrinal [[apartheid]]".<ref>''Newsweek'', May 3, 1965; cited in {{cite book |last1=Moore |first1=John Hammond |title=Columbia and Richland County: A South Carolina Community, 1740-1990 |date=1993 |publisher=Univ of South Carolina Press |isbn=978-0-87249-827-3 |page=426 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2GnH6cXpukwC&pg=PA426 |language=en}}</ref>

Since the late 20th century, historic preservation has played a significant part in the city. The historic [[Robert Mills House]] was restored in 1967, which inspired the renovation and restoration of other historic structures, such as the [[Hampton-Preston House]] and others associated with President [[Woodrow Wilson]], [[Maxcy Gregg]], [[Mary Boykin Chesnut]], and noted free black Celia Mann. In the early 1970s, the University of South Carolina initiated the refurbishment of its "Horseshoe". Several area museums also benefited from the increased historical interest of that time, among them the Fort Jackson Museum, the McKissick Museum on the campus of the University of South Carolina, and most notably the [[South Carolina State Museum]], which opened in 1988.

Mayor [[Kirkman Finlay Jr.]], was the driving force behind the refurbishment of Seaboard Park, now known as [[Finlay Park]], in the historic Congaree Vista district. His administration developed the $60 million Palmetto Center package, which resulted in construction of an office tower, parking garage, and the Columbia Marriott hotel, which opened in 1983. In 1980, the Columbia metropolitan population reached 410,088, and in 1990, this figure had hit roughly 470,000. During the 1970s and 1980s skyscrapers were constructed and other real-estate development took place throughout Columbia. To meet demand of businesses, the city constructed The [[Tower at 1301 Gervais]] in 1973. In 1983, Hub at Columbia was constructed. In 1987, the [[Capitol Center (Columbia, South Carolina)|Capitol Center]] was built, which became the tallest building in South Carolina. The [[Bank of America]] Plaza was built in 1989.