Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

This is probably the second most searched for closing, after The Bounty. As with The Bounty, I've held off doing a post because the place is completely gone, I don't have any pictures of it, and I don't have any personal memories to relate.

I was thinking that I could do some research at the RCPL and at least come up with an old Yellow Pages ad to hang a post on, but when I finally got a chance to check it out, I found that The Zoom Flume never had a Yellow Pages entry, at least under any category that made sense to me. In fact, they were only listed in the white pages for two years.

So here's what I know about the waterslide: The Zoom Flume was located at 107 Calvin Drive (unless you believe a city directory entry which puts it at 5959 Two Notch Road), which is a small street off of Two Notch Road in between Arcadia Lakes Drive and Fontaine Road. Calvin Drive starts perpendicular to Two Notch, then turns off parallel to Two Notch and Shakespeare Road and runs behind Freedom Suziki. 107 Calvin Drive is now a vacant lot behind Dixie Trophies, Inc.. The slide would, I assume, have been situated up the hill that elevates Shakespeare Road above Two Notch. Currently, for no reason I can discern, the empty lot is surrounded with a formidable looking 7000 volt electrical fence.

People have talked about The Zoom Flume in the comments sections of other posts from time to time, with the most solid information coming from commenter Captain Dave who said:

The one on Two Notch was indeed “The Zoom Flume”. I remember it well because they were a major sponsor at WZLD-FM where I worked. It’s heyday was the summer of 1979. We gave away free passes all the time. Ithink we tied it in with “The Ramblin’ Raft Race” on the Congaree River.

So that's pretty much it. Not a great post, but hopefully it will provide a place for people who actually went to the Flume to add comments. If anybody has pictures of themselves playing there back in the day, I'll gladly post those as well.

UPDATE 16 Dec 2010: Commenter Tonkatoy sends in this 1984 yearbook ad for Super Slide And Arcade which was apparently another incarnation of The Zoom Flume. It was slated to open in May of 1984. I don't recall that one at all. I've added Super Slide to the post title.

UPDATE 27 April 2017 -- I'm told that if you Facebook, there is a Zoom Flume photo here

According to this Columbia Star story, opened in 1963, which means that it has been there most of my lifetime. It didn't really occur to me that I hadn't really seen any school traffic there recently until I cut through Pine Belt one day and noticed all the construction going on.

I kept meaning to go over and take some pictures, but with one thing and another I didn't until this Sunday, when most of the Keenan signage was already gone. It's interesting that there seems to be a rather large auditorium but I can't ever recall going to anything there while we went to various productions at Dreher High School auditorium fairly frequently. Construction at the new school site, 361 Pisgah Church Road started in 1 June 2005. I'm not sure when they actually started using the new building, but clearly they did not use the old one for the 2009 school year.

Sanders Middle school is slated to move into the old Keenan building on 6 July 2009.

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Well, it appears that the Po Folks curse has struck again, and the building at 6246 Two Notch will need another new tenant. The phone is not yet disconnected (just constantly "busy"), but it seems that the Moore For Less used car dealership is gone. I would think that in this economy, used cars would be a sure bet, but perhaps the overall bank mess has affected financing, or people are holding on to what they have and not even getting new used cars...

UPDATE 13 March 2011 -- Well, in the last week they've knocked down the building and cleared the lot:

UPDATE 21 April 2011 -- It's to be a Dollar General and construction has already started:

UPDATE 25 June 2011 -- The Dollar General is open:

UPDATE 29 June 2021: Adding tags & map icon.

OK, here's something a little different for a Friday evening: Ads and jingles I saw and heard growing up. You may have had a different mix if you listened to different stations. Some were for local firms, some for national ones. I wish I could convey how catchy some of these jingles were, but I don't have any recordings, and I'm sure not going to try to sing them here!

Marion Bunside Dodge:

Mar-i-on is the name to remember,
7201 on the Sumter High-Way!
M-- "More Service"
A-- "Able to Serve You"
R-- "Real Value"
I-- "something something!"
O--"something something!"
N--"something something!"
Today!

Commercial Office Furniture:

Your next desk
Wil come from C-O-F!

The Captain's Kitchen:

Come to The Captain's Kitchen for 'Treasures of the Sea'!

The whole Carpet Wholesaler's series of TV commercials with Nevin Broome and Joe Pinner: "Save! Save! Save". My favorite though was the one where Joe comes upon Nevin who is tied up.

Joe: What happened Nevin!?
Broome: My competitors tied me up, Joe. They don't want folks to SAVE! SAVE! SAVE!
Broome: Untie me Joe!
Joe: I don't think so, Nevin (filches cigar from Broomes shirt pocket and walks off set).

McDonalds:

McDonalds is your kind of place!

which we always rendered:

McDonald's is your kind of place.
They steal your parking space!
Hamburgers out your nose,
French Fries between your toes!

And don't forget those groovy shakes
They're make from polluted lakes!
McDonalds is your kind of place.

Burger King:

Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce,
Special orders don't upset us!

The Tons O' Toys elf:

With tons of toys for girls & boys,
Toodly-oop!

Time For Sounds a daytime ETV program which ran while I was in elementary school. The hostess had a "magic chalk board" which was drawn with a music stave and which would play whatever notes she wrote on it. There was also a semi-animated classical re-working of "Pop Goes The Weasel" featuring "Super Weasel" which she played several times (or we just saw that episode several times). The main thing though was the opening theme which though it had no lyrics I always heard as It's really time for sounds, it's really time for sounds!

Ellison Insurance:

The El-is-son, The El-is-son,
Insurance agency, INSURANCE AGENCY!

The Contenential Sound girl:

Sounds real good!

Kaminer Heating & Air (sung in 1940s close harmony, like the Modernaires or Merry Macs):

Put comfort in your home
The Kaminer way.
Call Kaminer,
(boom, boom)
Right away!

Koolies:

Koo-Koo-Koolie
Orange Koolie
Lemon Koolie
Koolie Fruit Punch
Koolie in the morning
Koolie at lunch
Natural fruit flavors
Orange... lemon... PUNCH!

UPDATE 18 April 2024 -- Turns out that the fruit punch was Coolie not Koolie, and I finally found the commercial:

UPDATE 16 May 2010 -- The Kaminer jingle can be heard at the end of this commercial:

Well, you can't say they didn't make an effort at this Wal-Mart outparcel on Garners Ferry road. This building originally opened as a Fire Mountain Grill, which was explained to me once by a friend with contacts in the food industry as the brand Ryan's corporate used to move back into markets where they felt the Ryan's brand had been tarnished by the local franchisees.

I always felt that Fire Mountain was a bad name since it invoked images both of volcanic tropical islands like Hawaii and of heat and spiciness, none of which had anything to do with the food served. At any rate, they ran it as that for a few years, then transitioned it back into a Ryan's, which didn't last long at all.

The building looks quite impressive, especially when viewed end-on and from below, as when you walk in from Garners Ferry. Currently it's for sale. The sign doesn't mention that you get all the fixtures, but that seems to be the case -- they are still in there at any rate.

As an aside, and appropos to nothing, I parked in the lot at Aldi across the street from Ryan's while taking these pictures. I decided as long as I was parked there, I would go in -- What a weird and unpleasant place!

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This Sears Service Center used to mail out "lawn mower tuneup" cards every spring, and I took my mower there several times. In fact they mailed out one this spring and I was considering it though I ended up using the AARO Rental Center on Two Notch instead.

Really, when I think about it, I'm not sure why the place lasted as long as it did. Sears at the mall certainly has the space in the auto bay to do that sort of repair work there if they want to, and I'll bet the same is true of K-Mart as well -- there really wasn't a good reason for having three seperate buildings on Parklane.

I notice that Sears still refers to Columbia Mall rather than Columbia Place -- good for them!

UPDATE 29 February 2020: Add tags, map icon.

Well, people have been talking about Swain's in the comments recently, so I think I'll move this post forward in the queue, though I don't have a lot to say about it.

I haven't been able to find out much about Swain's. It was a name I heard growing up, but we never went there, and indeed I wasn't quite sure where it actually was at the time, or now. From this 1970 Yellow Pages ad, it appears to have been a Southern based chain, though I get google hits on locations elsewhere in the country now as well.

You'll notice that the ad doesn't give an actual street address and neither did the white pages listing which simply said "Knox Abbott Drive" -- it's like they thought if you didn't know, you shouldn't go. I had to search up into the 1980s before I found a listing that put them at "150 Knox Abbott Drive". Just from the 1970 ad, I had at first supposed that Swain's was the original tennant in the building now housing Monterrey Mexican, but that is "199 Knox Abbott", which is on the other side of the street entirely. From the satellite view in google-maps, it appears that "150 Knox Abbott" is now vacant (and would be in the vicinity of all the new land clearing on the Guignard Bricks property.

Swain's seems to have been an upscale place with a piano bar. I also notice that like a number of places from the 1970 phone book, they were open past what is considered "normal" (10pm) now -- I wish places still did that.

UPDATE 17 June 2009: Commenter Badger says the place lasted until 1995, so I have updated the closing date from "1980s" to that.

UPDATE 1 Oct 2010 -- Southern First bank is now approximately in the old Swain's location (though the street address for the bank is 190 Knox Abbott Drive vs 150 for the vanished Swain's building:

[26 June 2010: Howdy folks! If you're coming here from The State article on "The Old Caughman Place", there's more vanished Columbia here than just The Bounty. Take a look at the list of Alphabetical Closings, or check out the latest posts on the Columbia Closings home page -- Ted]

Well, this is one of the two most requested posts I haven't done yet, or at least one of the two "most searched for" posts. I've held off doing a post on The Bounty because I never ate there and didn't have any personal memories at all to relate, and the building is gone, so I couldn't get any photos. However, I did finally get a yellow pages ad (from the 1977 Southern Bell phonebook), so I decided to go out on the Sumter Highway and see if I could find where I thought it was.

The most likely place seems to be on Mill Creek off the right side of the road if you are heading towards Sumter. We used to take this route the the beach, and the site more or less comports with what I remember from those trips. Taking a good picture seems to be impossible though. There is no access to the lake from the Sumter Highway except as you go over the bridge, and if you were to park and walk out on the bridge you would be taking your life in your hands as there is no sidewalk space. The road is also too busy to stop on the bridge in your car. I went by half a dozen times before I was able to snap this poor shot through the window. I recall The Bounty as being on the left bank (as pictured here) of the lake. There must have been road access to the site, so I went around on Old Garners Ferry, but anything that seems likely is all fenced and posted -- you can't even see the lake from that side (though thre is a waterfall over the dam which I assume was once a mill, giving the creek its name).

The Bounty was a seafood restaurant which also had a kid-friendly "ship" which took kids out on the lake as part of a whole dining experience. From this site and various comments you folks have made here, I believe the story of The Bounty was about as follows:

A local businessman, B. C. Inabinet, had the enthusiasm and know-how to run a seafood restaurant, so he got his main company to build The Bounty and take ownership. It was profitable, and everyone was happy. When he passed away, his successors at the main company found they didn't have a passion for the restaurant business and decided to abandon The Bounty to concentrate on the firm's core interests. In the end the building was burned as a practice exercise for the local fire department.

That's about all I can say, except that it sounds like it was a fun place, and I'm sure that I would have liked it except for the "fish" part. Now, here's what y'all have said:

The far left of Captain’s Kitchen was shaped, or enclosed in an old boat, but who remember’s the Bounty out toward Hopkins that was built like a huge boat. My grandparent’s loved to eat there. It looked like some crazy themed resturant from the coast.
Also, what was the resturant located on Decker where Chick-fil-a is now. I think it was Applegates Landing. It was also themed on the inside. I remember a salad bar that was made from an old truck.

By Hal Reed on Sep 4, 2008

The Bounty was owned & operated by B.C. Inabinet, a college football star who founded Defender Industries and got rich selling janitorial supplies. We often bumped into him at his restaurant, and he was a happy, wonderful host who love people and loved to eat!

He also owned a working shrimp boat on the coast called The Bounty, and in the restaurant was a series of photos of the boat’s christening. His wife hit the bow with a magnum of champagne, and instead of breaking, it knocked a chunk off the boat! He found this hilarious and loved to tell the story.

Behind the restaurant he built a little shack on the lake’s edge where you could get beer and oysters in a sort of tropical setting. Great fun.

B.C. died from complications following stomach-stapling surgery (he was huge). I heard that he refused to follow doctor’s orders about eating after the operation and that’s what did him in.

By Dennis on Sep 5, 2008

The Bounty was a renovated wooden structure on the old swim club called Pine Woods. I think Pine Woods closed in the early seventies. I was involved with installing insulation under the restaurant for insulation. I believe the restaurant burned down after a few years.

By keith on Nov 12, 2008

I remember the Bounty well as I grew up on that side of town and we went there often. The whole restaurant inside and out looked like a ship right out of the 1600’s complete with great lighting at nights and mannequins. There was indeed a boat that took you on tours of the pond (although at 5 yrs old it seemed huge, especially after dark). It also seems that there was a pirate wharf out back with a little souvenir shack where you could get (among other things) little pirate flags and probably even those plastic pirate swords. In my memory it was as cool as Pirates of the Caribbean at Disney, and there has been nothing like it in Columbia since.

By Larry on Nov 13, 2008

The Bounty off of Garners Ferry Rd… few restaurants out that way in the late 70s other than the Chicken Coop near where Zaxby’s is now.

At the Bounty after dinner they’d ride you on the pond in the “ship.” One time the “skipper” said “You see that thing over there that looks like a log? Well, it is a log.” The place burned to the groud, maybe in the 80s.

By Midnight Rambler on Dec 16, 2008

The Bounty was a great place to go eat but I agree with Kelly, I don’t think it was quite as good as Captain’s Kitchen. When I was very young, my parents were members of Pinewood Club (where the Bounty was.) It was the big pond and a few rustic buildings. One was the canteen and others I think were the Men’s and Women’s buildings to change into their swimsuits. That’s where I learned to swim. Good fishing there too! I believe the Columbia Fire Dept may have torched the Bounty for training purposes. At least that is what I was told.

By Roy on Dec 21, 2008

UPDATE 30 September 2012: I'm very happy to report that thanks to commenter Steve who made the scans from his postcard we now have an actual picture of The Bounty! I have added the postcard to the very top of the post.

UPDATE 19 January 2013: Commenter Jiles Bishop sends this scan of a Bounty boat-ride token. Be sure to read his comment below as well:

I've written about Waldenbooks at Columbia Mall, and the other book store at Dutch Square Browz-a-Bit, but I've not said anything about the Dutch Square Waldenbooks, which for several years was my main book store.

Waldenbooks actually had two different locations in Dutch Square. The first one was sort of odd in that it was behind the corner of the main corridor and the first crosswalk, but not on the corner. There were two entrances to the store. One was on the crosswalk corrider before coming to the corner (where the Great Steak & Potato Co is today) and the other was on the main corridor just below Tapps (now the theaters), but the actual corner, Steak & Potato slot was another store.

The main corridor also goes markedly up hill from the crosswallk to Tapps, so the Walden's was a split-level store. If you call the crosswalk entrance the "front" (and that makes sense as they later closed off the exit to the main corridor), then the front of the store was on the ground and the back of the store was built on a platform that was, I believe, two steps up from the ground. My main interest was the science fiction rack, which was parallel to the main corridor and butted up against the raised platform forming the back of the store.

For at least one year, possibly two, I would spend one afternoon a week in the Dutch Square area while my mother would take my sister to piano lessons a couple of miles away. I had only a $0.60 weekly allowance, supplemented by $3.00 for mowing the lawn, so any actual purchase was a matter of careful deliberation and agonized tax calculation and penny counting (though it certainly helped that mass market paperbacks were still under a dollar in those years). In my hour or so of time, I would sometimes walk down to Boardwalk Plaza to peruse the Book Dispensary, but mainly I would circulate between Walden's and Browz-A-Bit trying to make up my mind.

I have strong memories of some of the books I bought at this Walden's (and in fact still have the books themselves in most cases). I recall in particular getting all of Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, one at a time, with awful 70s covers, and Pyramid editions of all of Doc Smith's Skylark and Lensman books (with bad [what was it with the 70s and loss of design sense?!] but better covers as well). Covers aside, I must have read each of those books at least 20 times.

I also liked the humor section though I rarely bought anything there. One book in particular made a great impression on me as a 13 or 14 year old. I was amazed that it sat right out there in the open, and always wished I had the courage to pick it up. Buying it was out of the question, of course :-)

Later when I could drive on my own, Columbia Mall became my book hangout of choice what with Walden's on one end and B. Dalton on the other. I sort of lost track of the Dutch Square Walden's. I did know they had moved down the main corridor from their original location. The reason I heard was that the split-level store was not ADA compatible, but I don't know if that is true or not. At any rate, I found their new location less interesting than the original. What with that, moving out of town and the advent of "big box" bookstores, I doubt I was in the new store more than a dozen or so times. I didn't even hear about it when the store closed.

After Walden's, Fashion's Unlimited went into their slot, and I find it amusing to see how they stock the men's dress shirts in the old Walden's magazine display rack.

I know this storefront on Two Notch Road below Dick Dyer Toyota has been a number of different operations over the years, but I can't bring any of them to mind right now, and google isn't overly helpful (I assume the fire department caution sign has the correct address..). I have to say that the name of this place strikes me as dubious. I want a bit more specificity in my food than Things -- It reminds me of the old "Parts is parts" chicken nugget commercial.

I don't know what happened here. The right side of the building looks like there might have been a fire, but the main part looks more like a truck ran into it. They yellow tape around the site designates it as a "crime scene", but I don't know if that's true or that's just the default for "keep out" banners.