Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Here's another old-school five and dime type operation on Main Street, right next to Silver's.

I'm not sure I ever went into McCrory's. Certainly it was already in decline when I was growing up, and for that type of retail, we were more likely to go to Woolworth's at Richland Mall, Dodd's at Forest Lake or Rose's at Trenholm Plaza.

My memory is that it did survive up to my college years in the early 1980s, and that it then tried to morph into a Family Dollar type operation which did not last long.

This Loopnet listing is interesting in that it has an optimistic artist's rendition of the building converted into

Renovated 31,000 SF of Class A office space for sale or lease. Suites available from 1,500 SF to 30,000 SF.

That is slated for 2011, but I don't think I've ever seen work going on at the site, and it looks rather sad right now with all the plywood.

UPDATE 19 March 2010: Added Revco Drugs to the post title based on the comments (and verified in the 1998 phonebook).

UPDATE 21 September 2012 -- These pictures from 12 January 2012 show work on the site:

This building, at the intersection of Percival Road and Old Percival Road, which loopnet says was built in 1960, has been a variety of things over the years. I used to be aware of it peripherally in the 1970s when I started to drive, and would go out to Bell Camp via Percival Road, and later when I would take Screaming Eagle Road to the beach. The only two tenants I can locate via google are Davis Open Air Market, which I kind of remember, and Percival Quick Stop which I do not.

I'm not really sure when the last business closed here, but I think it's been vacant for several years. The next incarnation, a Latin sports bar, looks nearly ready to open.

UPDATE 28 March 2019: Add tags and map icon.

I believe this Hallmark store in Dutch Square occupied the same space as Browz-A-Bit.

I used to go into Browz-A-Bit all the time, but I can only specifically recall going into Kitty's once. As you may have gathered if you have read a lot of these posting, I'm a big fan of The Beach Boys, and for reasons which probably only make sense to them, they released a CD of live recordings and member solo tracks, Songs From Here and Back exclusively through Hallmark stores a few years back, and I picked up my copy (it's reallly pretty good) at Kitty's.

This story from The State says that sales at the Dutch Square location had declined from a million dollars a year to two hundred and fifty thousand, a decrease of 75%! Given that, I can see how closing the store made sense. Obviously this is bad for the struggling mall though. It's recently lost two national brands with this and Chick-Fil-A closing. On the plus side, it has gotten two new local restaurants, though the re-opening of the D'Avino's space as another pizzeria probably really only counts as restoring the status-quo from a mall point of view.

24 August 2022: Updating tags and adding map icon.

Box & Bow was what I take to have been a wrapping and shipping store in the Piggly Wiggly plaza (Forest Park, I believe) on Forest Drive just west of Trenholm Plaza. I know my holiday experience vastly improved when I vowed to never wrap another package, but in this economy, perhaps fewer people are doing the same. The closing note is a classy touch during a hard time.

While the plaza and area are fairly upscale, there has been a fair bit of churn there in recent times, with LA Weight Loss, Tiny Treasures, Ten Thousand Villages and a photo-finishing outfit all closing. The plaza Pig itself is a new one and quite nice with noticably more space and better parking than the nearby Publix.

(Hat tip to commeter MPB.)

I'm not really sure this Raco station closed in 2008, but it looks decrepit enough to have been gone longer than a few months, and the listed gas price is too high to have been any earlier than that.

I'm not sure what the deal with "Raco" is. Googling turns up a few other Raco stations, but there doesn't seem to be any Raco company or company web site. There are certainly not common at any rate, and had you asked me "what's that station on Gervais called?" I would have drawn a total blank.

I was a bit surprised walking up and down The Vista Sunday that there are a number of properties for sale. I wonder if when they closed this station down, they figured they would be able to unload the lot quickly and at a good profit..

I really don't know anything about this building on Leesburg Road near James Browder Road. It does have that classic "country general store" look though. From the construction, I would guess that it was built pre-war. Even the electrical connection with the obvious insulators has kind of a 1930s look. The closing date I assigned, 1960s, is a total guess. The place has obviously not seen any maintenance in quite a while, but it could have easily lasted into the 1970s or even longer. Even today, the area is very rural, and some odd retail establishements (like Mr. Bunky's on the Sumter Highway) still survive.

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Except for the last one, which I took today, these pictures come from commenter Thomas who writes:

Was going through my photos and I had a few more I wanted to send you.

The Great Train Store: open 11/1996-7/2000.

I worked there from the opening to the closing of the store. It was a great place to work. Ten years later many of the employees still keep in regular touch with each other.

As a store the Columbia store (Store 30) was very successful. The store closed as a result of the failure of the company as a whole. At its largest the Great Train Store had more than 56 stores including SC stores in Columbia, Myrtle Beach, and Greenville. The store was located in Columbania Center where Build a Bear is now.

The Columbia store was the second to last store in the chain to close. The Myrtle Beach store (at Broadway at the Beach) closed a week later.

OK, I'm not entirely sure what to make of this one. The Lorick & Lowrance Mercantile Building is another of those great old Main Street buildings, with all the fancy work on top, and is on the City of Columbia landmark list.

I don't know what Lorick & Lowrance Mercantile originally sold, but the name suggests general retail merchandise. Anyway, it seems prosaic enough.

Where it gets a little odd is with the introduction of the Columbia Atheneum and Argyle Social Club. If you go to the "history" tab on this site, you'll find the story of a 150 year old Columbia high-rollers club "[whose] location has been kept hidden from the general public" -- It almost sounds like a put-on, your 2nd grade secret-clubhouse on steroids..

At any rate, the plan apparently was to come out of hiding, sell shares and buy the Lorick building. (There's a litle more information here). Since this was all supposed to happen in 2007 and the building is for lease today, I would say that something went wrong.

Interestingly, the building now has its own web site..

I was checking out Cantina 76 in the old Birds On A Wire location on Devine Street (it turned out to be closed on Sundays) when I noticed the building next door was vacant. It's a rather striking one -- a nice two story brick structure with multiple chimneys.

Since I'm not really an "interior design" person, it had never really struck my eye when it housed Pulliam-Morris (now located at 906 Harden Street), but it seems as though it would be a really classy location for a small law firm or accountancy.

I first wrote about this building in a closing for The Big T (Taylor Street Pharmacy).

After The Big T sold out, CVS ran the old pharmacy as one of its stores for a number of years though it was no longer a 24-hour store, and in fact was not even open on Sundays. I guess the rise of 24 hour Wal-Marts pretty much obviated the need for an all-night store, and the downtown location was just not a draw anymore for residential shoppers.

As of today (10 Feb 2010) it appears that they are still moving things out of the building. There was a rental truck in the lot, and I saw a couple of people go in and out.

UPDATE 9 March 2011: Added the store number (5766) based on the comments.

UPDATE 10 March 2011 -- Remodeling work is ongoing, and some of the original Taylor Street Pharmacy signage is visible now:

UPDATE 5 July 2022: Updating tags, adding map icon.