1978 look at Broadway, Seventh and Ninth streets

Miller Shoe Store, 800 East Broadway, courtesy the City of Columbia
800 E. Broadway in 2002. What was there before? A 1978 report will tell you. Photo courtesy the City of Columbia

Want to take a walk through the past? This 1978 historic survey report on Columbia’s buildings on Broadway, Seventh and Ninth streets and it reads like a walk through time, describing the buildings as they were in 1978 — and what they once looked like and what was there before then.

For example, the report on 720 E. Broadway, now Central Bank of Boone County, states the building once sported bronze doors.

The report goes on to state in 1889, the lot was home to a carriage factory and harness shop. Between 1889 and 1895, a three-story brick building on that spot housed “various smithys, groceries and lodge halls,” the report states. “In 1916 these two buildings were demolished for the present Boone County Bank.”

The report contains a page or two on each building on Broadway, some on Seventh and Ninth streets, pictures and citations to newspaper and other publications.

So download the report, print it out and if the weather ever cools down, take a walk through the past and try to see what was once there and what’s left behind.

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