The Efird’s Department Store, located at 1601 Main Street in downtown Columbia, is an important landmark associated with the growth of modern department-store retailing in the city during the early twentieth century. Although the building itself originated as a commercial structure dating to about 1870, it was dramatically remodeled and enlarged in 1919, when the Charlotte-based Efird’s Department Store undertook a comprehensive rehabilitation of the property. The project added a third story, installed a new brick façade, and created new storefront entrances, transforming the older building into a substantial early twentieth-century department store.

Efird’s had entered the Columbia market in 1915, becoming one of the city’s most prominent retail establishments. The company had originated in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1907, when Hugh Efird acquired the Charlotte Mercantile Company, commonly known as the Bee Hive. Hugh Efird was subsequently joined by his brothers Joseph and Edmund Lilly, and the business was reorganized as Efird’s Department Store. The company expanded rapidly throughout the Carolinas and neighboring states and eventually operated more than fifty stores, becoming one of the largest department-store chains in the South.

The 1919 remodeling was significant because it gave the older Main Street building a thoroughly modern commercial identity. The addition of a third floor increased usable retail space, while the new brick exterior unified the building visually and provided a more imposing presence along Main Street. Large display windows and multiple entrances were incorporated into the storefront, reflecting the emerging department-store practice of using expansive glass displays to attract pedestrians and advertise merchandise. The resulting building combined the structural fabric of a nineteenth-century commercial property with the appearance and merchandising requirements of a twentieth-century department store.

Efird’s was particularly important to Columbia’s retail history because it introduced the one-price cash-store concept to the city. Rather than relying upon traditional bargaining practices, the store offered merchandise at marked, fixed prices, representing a more standardized and modern approach to retail commerce. Between 1919 and 1958, Efird’s became one of the most significant stores on Main Street and helped establish the shopping patterns and commercial atmosphere that characterized downtown Columbia for generations.

The store’s importance extended beyond its merchandise. Efird’s helped transform Main Street into a modern shopping destination where shoppers could find clothing, household goods, dry goods, and other merchandise under one roof. Its large-scale operation reflected changing consumer habits and the increasing influence of regional department-store chains. The building therefore represents an important transition from the smaller specialty shops and traditional dry-goods establishments of the nineteenth century toward the integrated department-store model that dominated urban retailing during the first half of the twentieth century.

The architectural history of the building is especially noteworthy because it illustrates how Columbia’s commercial structures were frequently adapted rather than demolished as downtown commerce expanded. The underlying building retained its nineteenth-century origins, while the 1919 renovation altered its scale and appearance to meet the demands of modern retailing. This combination of older construction and early twentieth-century remodeling gives the building a layered architectural history that documents several generations of Columbia’s commercial development.

After Efird’s closed its Columbia operation in 1958, the building continued to serve commercial purposes and became associated with other retail uses, including Lourie’s Department Store. Its continuing retail function helped preserve its relationship with Main Street’s commercial life. In the twenty-first century, the historic building became home to the Mast General Store, continuing a tradition of retail use that stretches back well over a century.

The Efird’s Department Store building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on October 9, 2012, recognizing its local significance in the area of commerce. Its significance rests particularly on Efird’s role between 1919 and 1958 as one of downtown Columbia’s earliest and most successful department stores and on its introduction of the one-price cash-store concept.