Sharp End, Columbia’s Black business and cultural center, was wiped out in the 1960s through urban renewal.
Category: Areas
Where are CoMo’s unique neighborhoods?
Neighborhoods. Streetscapes. Where we live. Cities, even CoMo, are made up of neighborhoods, often with a streetscape, a way the area looks that’s uniform — or not. These neighborhoods with their own streetscapes are the places where we live, it’s where you and I might actually know the people (and, for me, the dogs) who…
Map mania, gawkers welcome
Calling all history and map lovers! The city of Columbia offers more than nine pages of maps and visual information. Take a peek and let me know what maps you found the most fun and informative. You can take a look at a street map of Columbia’s brick streets, a map of Columbia’s historical properties…
A 1994 view of East Campus
On Monday, Columbia City Council OK’d the creation of a new East Campus neighborhood association. But on this website, I like to look into the past. Here’s a report from February 1994 that will let you take a peek at the past in the East Campus area. The document includes a 1931 map of the…
1978 look at Broadway, Seventh and Ninth streets
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…
Dangers of historical research
East Campus history, Gathering Place closed in December 2017.
Demolishing James Apartments: More than the loss of one building
Why should we care about one building being demolished? One building older than 100 years doesn’t seem like much to lose. We have lots of buildings, right? Yes and no. This Feb. 16, 2016 article by Brittany Crocker with photos by Mikala Compton published in the Columbia Missourian explains why the loss of one building…
Lost Black history spotlighted on Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Black history will be the brought back to life on Tuesday, May 19, 2015 with the unveiling of a marker to highlight a place that once existed — Sharp End — will be highlighted. From 5:30 to 6:15 p.m., members of the Sharp End Heritage Commission and city and state officials will mark the unveiling…
Things that go bump in the day and the night
Interested in what you can’t see? That’s what you’ll learn about at these free downtown historic walking tours, with the first one slated for July 31, 2014. Given by members of the Historic Preservation Commission of the City of Columbia, the tours will focus on what you can — and can’t see. All four of…
Tips on making the past present
It is so easy for the past to slip away, a building gets a new tenant, a new use or a new name and bingo! The past is gone. But in Cape Girardeau, Lindsey Lotz, a Southeast Missouri State University, has created posters to bring history into the present for four downtown buildings. The buildings…