Historic Columbia Foundation

Founded in 1961 by a group of preservationists intent on saving the Ainsley Hall House, known now as the Robert Mills House, Historic Columbia is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving Columbia and Richland County's historic and cultural heritage. Today, Historic Columbia manages five historic house museums, including the Robert Mills House & Gardens, the Hampton-Preston Mansion & Gardens, the Museum of the Reconstruction Era at the Woodrow Wilson Family Home, the Mann-Simons Site & Outdoor Museum, and the Modjeska Monteith Simkins House. In addition to operating historic house museums, Historic Columbia works to create and maintain successful partnerships with Columbia organizations, residents, and community members to preserve Columbia objects, buildings, and stories. Historic Columbia is continually striving to make our full collection digitally available to the public for education and research purposes. New objects and edits to current entries will be published routinely. To stay apprised of future additions to this database, learn more about copyright permissions, or to inquire about donating an object, please visit HistoricColumbia.org.