South Carolina State House

The old State House was constructed between 1786 and 1790. James Hoban, a young Irishman who emigrated to Charleston shortly after the Revolution, was the architect. Upon the recommendation of Henry Laurens, President Washington engaged him to design the executive mansion in Washington. Old pictures of the two buildings show architectural similarities. The old State House was destroyed during the burning of Columbia in 1865. ==Historic photos==

The South Carolina State House was designed first by architect P. H. Hammarskold. Construction began in 1851, but the original architect was dismissed for fraud and dereliction of duty. Soon thereafter, the structure was largely dismantled because of defective materials and workmanship. John Niernsee redesigned the structure and work began on it in 1855, slowed during the Civil War, and was suspended in 1865 as General W.T. Sherman's U.S. Army entered Columbia on February 17. Several public buildings were "put to the torch" when United States troops entered the city. The new capitol building, still under construction, was damaged by artillery shells. The old capitol building was set afire by U.S. Army troops under Sherman's command. Reconstruction-era poverty slowed progress. The building's main structure was finally completed in 1875. From 1888 to 1891, Niernsee's son, Frank McHenry Niernsee, served as architect and much of the interior work was completed. In 1900 Frank Pierce Milburn began as architect, but was replaced in 1905 by Charles Coker Wilson who finally finished the exterior in 1907. Additional renovations were made in 1959 and 1998. The State House was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976 for its significance in the post-Civil War Reconstruction Era. ==Grounds==

The land around the South Carolina State House has changed dramatically since the construction of the first State House in Columbia in 1786. The grounds were not manicured or designed and the public consistently commented upon the site as a disgrace to the state. With the erection of the current State House in the 1850s at the center of Main (Richardson) Street, the grounds were extended to Sumter Street to the east but remained an active construction site until after the Civil War and the burning of Columbia and the grounds. The state legislatures following Reconstruction were the first to make plans for the grounds' design. Landscape architect Edward Otto Schwagerl drew plans in 1878 for a picturesque plan of winding paths and drives to surround the building; it made no suggestions for the location or erection of monuments, was only partially executed, and was poorly maintained. Complaints about the grounds led the city's Civic Improvement League to design a plan for the grounds' improvement and expansion as part of a City Beautiful master plan for the city from Boston firm Kelsey & Guild in 1904, but it was never executed. Monuments were added to the grounds during this period with little consideration of their overall configuration or relationship to the building and the public continued to complain about the property's condition into the 1960s. • Palmetto Monument - The legislature appropriate funds for this monument, created by Christopher Werner, in 1856; it is a cast iron and copper palmetto commemorating the Palmetto Regiment, South Carolina's soldiers in the Mexican-American War. South Carolina had a vested interest in the war's outcomes as the acquisition of new territory changed the balance of states in the U.S. Congress. • South Carolina Monument to the Confederate Dead - This Confederate memorial was erected in 1879, and was unveiled before a crowd of 15,000. The obelisk was designed by Muldoon, Walker and Cobb and the sculpture designed by Carlo Nicoli. The South Carolina Monument Association, a group of white women, originally conceived of the sculpture in 1869 as an early example of Confederate commemoration and the Lost Cause commemoration. They planned it for a different location (Taylor's Hill near the governor's mansion), but the end of Reconstruction and ousting of the biracial, Republican-led state legislature made it possible for the sculpture and obelisk to be erected on the State House grounds. It was installed on the northeast side of the grounds following the 1876 election of Governor Wade Hampton III in a fraudulent and violent election. The statue atop the monument's obelisk was largely destroyed by lightning in 1882, but was replaced by the state two years later and relocated to its current site on axis with the State House's north entrance. The flag was moved near the monument on July 1, 2000, after the passage of the South Carolina Heritage Act and decades of debate and boycotts of the state over the issue. and given to the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room & Military Museum. • Monument to Women of the Confederacy - a bronze Confederate monument, by Frederic W. Ruckstull, erected in 1912 and promoted by the United Confederate Veterans. • Strom Thurmond - In the late 1990s, the state erected a statue in honor of the former South Carolina governor, U.S. senator, and Dixiecrat candidate for president. The original inscription of the names of Thurmond's children were later altered to include the name of Essie Mae Washington-Williams, the daughter of Thurmond and an African American maid. • Benjamin Tillman (dedicated 1940) - U.S. Senator; this monument is controversial due to Tillman's virulent racism, support for Jim Crow, and advocacy of terrorizing blacks who attempted to vote during Reconstruction. In 2017, protestors called for its removal. • Law Enforcement Memorial - Erected in 2005, this memorial honors South Carolina law enforcement officers killed while on duty. • Spanish-American War Veterans Monument - installed on October 22, 1941 and dedicated by the State of South Carolina and the United States Spanish War Veterans. It commemorates the veterans of the Spanish-American War, the Philippine Insurrection and the China Relief Expedition. In 1932, South Carolina veterans of the Spanish-American War proposed the statue as a way to acknowledge how the war united Southerners and Northerners after the Civil War. Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson designed the monument, which is the only female artist-designed monument on the grounds of the State House. The monument is a bronze cast of Kitson's statue The Hiker, which is used in Spanish-American War monuments throughout the United States. Captain Swanson Lunsford (d. 1799), a Virginia-born American Revolutionary War officer who once owned land that is now part of the State House, is buried on State House grounds, along with a marker erected by his descendants in 1953. ==Statehouse grounds gallery==