Saint Peter’s Roman Catholic Church, at 1529 Assembly Street in Columbia, is one of the city’s most important religious and architectural landmarks and the historic mother church of Catholicism in the Midlands. The parish was established in 1821 to serve the growing Catholic population associated in part with the Irish laborers who came to Columbia to work on the city’s canals, and its first church, designed by noted architect Robert Mills, was completed in 1824. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the congregation had outgrown and deteriorated the original building, leading to its replacement with the present sanctuary. Designed by prominent regional architect Frank Pierce Milburn, the new church was begun in March 1906 and completed in late 1908, with formal dedication in January 1909. Milburn, one of the South’s most prolific architects, gave the building a distinguished Gothic Revival character appropriate to its religious function and monumental downtown setting.

The church is constructed of locally selected dark-red brick with Bedford stone and dull-glazed white terra-cotta trim, while its steep roof is covered in Buckingham slate and its principal doors are fashioned of cathedral oak. The cruciform plan, tall nave, pointed-arch openings, prominent tower and spire, and carefully articulated Gothic detailing give the building a strong vertical emphasis characteristic of the Gothic Revival. The property also includes a historic cemetery at the rear, with burials dating to approximately 1840 and graves associated with early members of Columbia’s Catholic community, including engineer and architect John R. Niernsee and early St. Peter’s priest Father James Wallace. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1989 for its architectural significance and its importance to the history of Catholicism in South Carolina, St. Peter’s remains an exceptionally intact expression of early twentieth-century ecclesiastical architecture and an important physical link to Columbia’s religious development. In 2018, the church was elevated to the status of Minor Basilica, becoming the first basilica in South Carolina.