Did you know that about 14% of Americans were expected to participate in Dry January? We have heard that there are even some folks around the capital city that have decided to participate, editor Jess included, so we’re taking a deeper look into the more boozy tales from South Carolina – here’s the story of the State Dispensary Warehouse.
The building that used to fill the cups for all those in the state is located on the corner of Pulaski and Gervais streets. You might recognize this building today as your neighborhood Publix.
State Dispensary Warehouse Historical Marker | Photo via COLAtoday team
Let’s rewind all the way back to 1864 when the building was first constructed and start from the beginning. The current structure is not what existed back in the day because it was burned down not once, but twice. The first fire occurred in 1865 when federal troops burned everything in Columbia down and the second occurred in 1897 after it was rebuilt to house a cotton batting factory.
In 1898, the State Dispensary was created by Governor Benjamin R. Tillman and adopted by the South Carolina State Legislature as a way to ensure that the state had control over the production + sale of the hard stuff, aka alcohol. This newly proposed idea had not been implemented at the state level before and proved to be a compromise for both sides. The “wets” thought that the system was better than prohibition and the “dries”, or prohibitionists, saw the system as a foot in the door towards prohibition.
During the prime days of the facility, the state required that all liquor sold within the Palmetto State to be bottled and distributed through the state-run facility. A state commissioner, who was appointed by the governor, was in charge of the day-to-day tasks, including acquiring all liquors that would be bottled by the state dispensary + sold to the county dispensaries – and all but two counties in the state ended up establishing a dispensary for a period of time.
Local dispensers then sold the liquor at set prices and shared the profits between the state, the municipality, and the county.
The bottles that held the legal liquor were uniquely designed for the job so officials knew that the contents came from the dispensary. From 1893-1907, the bottles had an embossed design featuring a palmetto tree later moving to a design that included the letters S, C, and D. The most common type of bottle used at the dispensary was the jo-jo flask – see some of the bottles here.
The monopoly on the sale of liquor was complete with the state having total control from the governor, to the attorney general. Though the State Dispensary system generated impressive revenue, it also brought with it corruption + violence, and was finally shut down in 1907 after the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional.
The building was vacant from 1907 until the 1920s and over time it served as a warehouse for a succession of businesses for the next fifty years. It was vacant again from the late 1970s until 2004, when a project transformed the neglected space and made it into the Publix Super Market that now stands today. Shortly after the new business moved in, seven townhouses, known as Estates on Gervais, opened in 2010.
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