The South Side Historic District in Columbus is an architectural gem with about 250 homes on the National Register of Historic Places. It provides a place where in a less than an hour walk through the western part of the district you are carried through 200 years of architectural history. The neighborhood encompasses a delightful sampling of Columbus’ architecture, history and stories.

A 45-minute walk through the western part of the historic district presents more than 40 houses listed on the National Register of Historic Places, six houses included in the Library of Congress’ Historic American Building Survey, a Mississippi Landmark, a National Literary Landmark and a National Historic Landmark. Begin the walk beside the Welcome Center located in the 1875 Tennessee Williams home at the corner of Main and Third streets. This was the first home of playwright Tennessee Williams and is a National Literary Landmark. It was on this and the adjacent city blocks that the Town of Columbus planted roots. Andrew Jackson’s Military Road, which was surveyed in the summer of 1817 and completed in 1820, had its ferry crossing where the Tombigbee bridges at the foot of Main Street now cross the river.

Though the first house was built in 1817, Columbus did not begin to take on the appearance of a town until the summer of 1819. As it was believed the Tombigbee River was the state line and that Columbus was in Alabama, it was the Alabama Legislature on Dec. 6, 1819, which recognized the new settlement as the Town of Columbus. That changed with the completion of the survey of the Mississippi/Alabama state line in late 1820.

On Jan. 3,1821, the governor of Mississippi announced Columbus was actually in Mississippi. On Feb. 10, 1821, the Town of Columbus, Alabama, officially became the Town of Columbus, Mississippi. A public school, Franklin Academy, was also established in February 1821 and William Cocke became president of its board of trustees. Cocke corresponded with his old friend in Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, about the school and its students. They included male and female and children from two Choctaw families.

The office of Visit Columbus on Third Street South sits about where the first house site of Columbus, a log cabin, was built in 1817. By 1820 Spirus Roach was keeping a store and tavern there. Because Roach and his children had long pointed noses, the Choctaw Indians who traded with him called him Possum. When going to Columbus they referred to going to Possum town.

By 1819 William Cocke resided in a large cross-hall log house where the Tennessee Williams house is now located.

From this founding location of Columbus, we walk south down Third Street. On the northwest corner of the intersection of Third Street and College Street (originally named Washington Street) is a ca. 1880 house in the Italianate style. The house presents elements one would find in an Italian villa. On the southeast corner is the ca. 1825 Ole Homestead and east of it is St Paul’s Episcopal Church on College Street.

The church is a Gothic Revival structure reminiscent of a medieval English country church. Planning for construction began in 1854 with the acquisition of plans from a Mr. Humpage. Those were very similar to plans for an “ecclesiastically correct church” that had been published by Rev. John Hopkins. They were submitted to Columbus architect James Lull for review and cost estimate before construction began.

Problems arose with “faithless contractors (and) unreliable friends.” Then in the 1855-56 cotton season low water in the Tombigbee prevented the shipment of cotton crops to Mobile to be sold. That brought major hardships to a local cotton based economy and construction of St. Paul’s was suspended for a year. William O’Neal, another Columbus architect and contractor, was hired to revise the building plans and resume work. The church was completed in 1860.

On the corner is the Ole Homestead, a vernacular raised cottage that was probably built in 1825. It was originally two rooms over two rooms facing Franklin (now Third) Street South and the Tombigbee River. Charles Abert is the first recorded owner of the property and appears to have either purchased or built the house when he moved to Columbus in 1825. H.S. Bennett was a renter living in the house from 1830-35. He later represented Mississippi in Congress. It was purchased from Abert in 1835 by John Kirk, who added an east wing and reoriented it to Washington (now College) Street. It is one of the oldest raised cottages in Mississippi and resembles Madam John’s Legacy, a French Colonial raised cottage in New Orleans. It is also the oldest building known to have survived within the original town limits of Columbus.

A block south of College Street at the corner of Third Street and Third Avenue (Lafayette Street) two historic houses face each other. On the northeast corner is the 1852 Greek Revival style Swoope home. Its original porch was totally different and the present porch with square two-story columns was said to have been added in the 1940s after the movie “Gone With the Wind” came out and the family living there wanted their home to look more like the Southern mansions in the movie.

Facing the Swoope home from the other side of Third Street is Twelve Gables. It is a Greek Revival style used on a traditional house plan. It was built ca. 1837 and is the house in which in 1866 four ladies organized the Columbus Decoration Day ceremony. The home is named after its 12 dormers and gable windows.

A block south, Third Street meets Fourth Avenue (Bridge Street) and we leave the original town limits of Columbus. On the southeast corner is Corner Cottage, which may have been built as early as 1830. It is an excellent example of the transition from Federal Style to Greek Revival Style. The house was enlarged probably ca. 1850 and the present porch replaced an earlier porch in the mid-1880s. The home on the southwest corner combines Italianate and Gothic elements and was constructed ca.1859.

Fourth Avenue  was known as Bridge Street because in 1842, Black engineer Horace King constructed Columbus’ first bridge over the Tombigbee at the street’s west end. It was a wooden covered bridge that came off the crest of the river bluff.

At Third and Fifth Avenue (Eliza Street) three classic houses grace the corners. On the northeast corner is a ca. 1914 brick house in the Prairie style. This was a style created by architects of what is called Chicago’s Prairie School and was made famous by Frank Lloyd Wright. Across the street on the northwest corner is a ca. 1869 home in the style of an Italian villa. On the southwest corner is a turreted Queen Ann style house. This is the classic style popular in the late 1800s and very early 1900s.

A  short detour a block east down Fifth Avenue at the corner of Fourth and Fifth streets are two houses worth noting. On the northwest corner is the ca. 1900 home of Capt. Sam Kaye, a highly decorated pilot (by both the United States and France) who commanded the 1st Flight in Eddie Rickenbacker’s famed Hat in the Ring Squadron during World War I. The house is also known as the Propst Home. On the southwest corner is the ca. 1838 home of prominent mid-19th century Mississippi political figure William S. Barry. Barry served as Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives and as a U.S. congressman. The house was originally one story with the second floor added later.

A block down on the corner of Third and Sixth Avenue (Margaret Street) stands a Queen Ann house on the west corner and across the street, Whitehall, which was built by James Walton Harris in 1843. It is a heavy classical and masculine expression of Greek Revival in the style of early Columbus architect James Lull. During the Civil War, the basement served at times as a hospital and then during World War II served as the “Drop in Hanger” service men’s center. Tennessee Williams’ mother played cards there and Upton Sinclair was known to party there.

The house next to Whitehall was built by Harris as a wedding present for one of Harris’ daughters. Originally it was one story with the second floor added later.

At Second Street we are greeted by White Arches on the southwest corner and The Colonnade on the northwest corner. White Arches was built by Jeptha Vining Harris, a wealthy planter, legislator, and Confederate general, about 1858. It is a unique mixture of Gothic Revival, Greek Revival and Towered Italianate styles.

Across the street, the Colonnade is a Carolina side hall plan house with a Greek Revival facade. It was constructed about 1860. It was one of the last large Greek Revival style homes built in Columbus.

Walking north up Second Street and headed back toward the Visit Columbus offices, Lehmquen, a ca. 1838 Greek Revival raised cottage is on the east or right side of the street. The house, though Greek Revival, has the flavor of a Louisiana Creole cottage. Crossing Sixth Avenue, two of the most impressive homes in Columbus face each other. On the east is the Pratt Thomas home and on the west is Riverview.

The Pratt Thomas home is a raised cottage in the Greek Revival style. It was completed in 1847 and is considered “the largest, most elegant, and most unusual of Columbus’ raised-cottage dwellings.” Among the residents of the Pratt Thomas home were two brothers, Drs. William and John Richards. William was a surgeon at Fort Apache with Dr. Walter Reed and would sit there under a tree and talk with Geronimo. He was also the doctor who delivered Tennessee Williams. John Richards was a physician for the Rockefeller and Roosevelt families in New York and in April of 1912 was called to meet the Carpathia and tend to the survivors of the Titanic.

Riverview was completed by 1853 and is now a National Historic Landmark. The house was also probably designed by James Lull as it is a larger, more ornate version of his personal residence, Camellia Place. Next to the house the original servants’ quarters and kitchen have survived. Riverview has possibly the most monumental interior plaster decorations of any house in Mississippi.

The north end of the block on which Riverview sits was the site of the town’s first cemetery. It dated to about 1820 and was known as the Tombigbee Graveyard. The graves were moved after Friendship Cemetery was established in 1849. Half a block off Second Street on Fifth Avenue and across from the site of the graveyard is Buttersworth, an 1820s dogtrot log house converted into a Greek Revival house in the 1840s.

On the northwestern corner of Second Street and Fourth Avenue is what appears to be a Queen Ann Victorian House but buried within it is a smaller 1840s house. Turning east — or right — onto Third Avenue we find in the middle of the block Errolton, a ca. 1848 home. Walking back to Third Street we turn left or north and return to our starting point.   

Rufus Ward is a local historian.

Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].