Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

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Although I've never been to the area, there is still a Twin Lakes Park associated with Fort Jackson (the Google link to the left brings up some maps, this is a more official link), as well as the titular pair of lakes (though a google review notes one of them has been drained, presumably since the Great Flood of 2015). These write-ups lead me to believe that facilities like the ones on the postcard no longer exist there.

Indeed, growing up in the 1960s, I never heard anything about a Twin Lakes swimming area. Of course as a USC family, we had access to Bell Camp for lake swimming, so we never would have gone there. Still, I would have expected to hear about other people going if it were still around. One key may be the notation on the post card that the site is near Camp Jackson. As far as I can tell, Camp Jackson was renamed Fort Jackson during the build up to World War II. (This site gives 1940 as the date for the name change). That being the case, the resort could have been long closed by the 1960s.

Does anyone have any more information about this place?

Many of these pictures were originally part of my Great Flood of 2015 entry Devine / Crowson / Fort Jackson Boulevard. I have decided to break the Auto Money Title Loans building (and later the Subway) out as separate posts to make them easier to find in the future as these two building, along, and even moreso, with the TitleMax building have become somewhat iconic images of the flood. The old posts will remain, and some photos are duplicated.

Anyway, both of these buildings sat on the bank of Gills Creek and in the 1000 Year Flood were filled with water up to the roofs. In addition the creek bank under the backs of the buildings was undermined to the point that with everything, the buildings were total losses.

21 October 2015:

Here we see the buildings a couple of weeks after the flood, when I got back to town from the beach and the roads were open enough for me to go picture taking.

19 June 2018:

Here both buildings have been fenced off, but have not yet been torn down as the FEMA process was still ongoing.

13 March 2019:

Here the Subway has been taken down, and the Title Loans building is next up.

18 March 2019:

Here are some driveby photos of the Title Loans building coming down.

28 March 2019:

Here is the current vacant state of the lot. The Free Times says:

"After extensive information gathering and a lengthy application process to FEMA, the city received Hazard Mitigation Grant Program assistance from FEMA to purchase afflicted homes and the former Title Loan property," a police department release said. "In purchasing the properties with federal grant funds, the city is required to demolish the structures in accordance with FEMA’s conditions, and return the land to green space in perpetuity."

That link also has a good picture of the pre-demolition state of the back side of both buildings.

UPDATE 21 June 2019 -- Here's a picture I took for some reason in 2013 showing the place in operation:

I finally made it out the the break in US-21/Wilson Boulevard the other week. It's not a big break as things go, but as far as I can tell, no work whatsoever has been done on it. I have to admit that this surprises me a little: A US route is supposed to mean something even if they aren't what they were back in the pre-Interstate days.

At this time, Lake Elizabeth is basically a pasture with some streams cutting across it. I am not able to embed a google map for some reason, but if you look at this link you can see an aerial view. It's sort of interesting in that the different zoom levels were taken on different dates. At this zoom: No lake. Zoom in one level farther: Lake!

I did a closing once on the adjacent convenience store. At the time, it was (or was no longer..) an AM PM. Now it is Ez Xpress. For some reason it was not not open on this Saturday evening, but as far as I could tell, it was not defunct.

I had driven past the Old Mill in Lexington a number of times since the great flood of 4 October 2015 which burst the dam, but I had never taken the time to stop and have a look. Since it was a nice sunny day and I had some time, I took the opportunity to check it out on 21 May 2016.

It appears to me that there were two channels out of the now dry mill pond to the creeks that cross under US-1. The south fork, which is now basically stagnant with no connection to the water flow out of the former pond and the north fork which comes through the dam washout, and is flowing quite vigorously. Since the channel clearly predates the dam breach, I guess there was a spillway in the dam for this channel to power the equipment of the original mill, and that this spillway gave way in the breach.

The dam itself is an earthen embankment and apart from the breach on the end nearest to the mill complex is still largely intact. I was able to get on top of it and walk almost to the breach. (I could have walked *to* the breach and gotten some better pictures, but I didn't see any reason to give another portion of the dam the temptation to give way with me on top..)

I'm not sure what the plans for the site are. There does not appear to have been any start at reconstructing the dam, and of course as the mill is no longer active, there is no necessity to do so, but the pond is a nice setting for the various restaurants and businesses in the old mill comples..

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They don't work so well once they've been under water..

I'll also note that most of the parking lot at this old Captain's Kitchen location has now been torn up, I suppose for the greening of the former restaurant space.

And, we have a new cell tower:

Divine Consign in the The Shops Of O'Neil Court is yet another casualty of the great 4 October Flood of 2015.

They opened in the old Capital City Consignments / Roundabouts Consignments slot sometime in 2012, and lasted until they were washed out.

From their Facebook page it does not appear they have relocated to anyplace else.

Chocolate Nirvana had the misfortune to choose the exact wrong time to move from their old Richland Street location to Fort Jackson Boulevard beside Gills Creek. In the event, they were devastated by the Great Flood Of 2015, and it now appears that they have given up on the building, which is currently for lease.

Their website leaves room to hope they may be back in another location, but I suspect the flood marks the end of this much repurposed building and would not be surprised to see it knocked down, though I'm not sure anything else could now be built on the lot.

UPDATE 18 March 2019 -- Not sure what is happening here, but some operation with a bull statue is setting up:

By this point, the fact that Jillian's in the Vista has closed their doors has been pretty extensively discussed in Have Your Say. I believe I had been there twice: Once for a class reunion, and once for a Swimming Pool Qs show. We were supposed to have a family event there about two years ago, but it turned out to be too crowded, and we ended up at Mellow Mushroom. About all I can recall from the times I was there was that it was too loud and busy to ever be a regular spot for me.

The State lays the closing at the feet of the Great Flood of 2015, saying that the 10 day closing and coverage denial by business interruption insurance sealed the deal. Commenters here tend to favor an accumulating straw theory in which the one which broke the camel's back would have come soon one way or the other.

(Hat tip to commenter April)

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The Picture Place was for many years in the old Forest Lake TV storefront in Forest Lake Shopping Center. I know I had at least one photo framed there, and I think my mother had some art framed there as well.

As with everything else in that shopping center, the 4 October 2015 flood which roared through Nine Mile Branch and Gills Creek devastated their building as you can see in the first pictures above.

Fortunately, since since 19 November 2015 the store has been operating from their new home in Forest Park in the former Oreck / All Vacuums suite.