Columbia Standard

Columbia recently opened a public park to commemorate the life of Page Ellington, a prominent Black architect who helped to make the city what it is today. 

Ellington was instrumental in helping build several of the buildings in town, but received little or no recognition and was referred to as a "useful servant" in books chronicling the history of the area.

When Bobby Donaldson, a history professor at the University of South Carolina and director of the Center for Civil Rights History Research at the college, discovered Ellington's story, he said he knew that something must be done about it. 

“There is no name on these buildings that commemorates the life of the man who helped to build this campus," Donaldson said at the park's opening and dedication of Page Ellington Park in June, according to The Post and Courier. "Well today, Mr. Mayor and City Council, we offer a correction. We offer a reconstruction of this history of Columbia.”

According to The Post and Courier, Ellington was a self-taught architect and builder who worked on numerous buildings on the property and elsewhere in the city. He was close with Dr. James Babcock, whose name adorns one of Columbia’s iconic buildings that was heavily damaged by fire last year but is being rebuilt into hundreds of apartments. 

With all the new development has been a recognized need from the city, local historians and developers to acknowledge the deep and at times sordid history of the property, once part of a slave plantation before it became an asylum for the mentally ill. 

The recognition includes the contributions of some of the area’s Black leaders, from Reconstruction through the civil right era, The Post and Courier reported.

Now the large, 20-acre public space in the BullStreet District at 2220 Gregg St., bears Ellington’s name, the result of a committee of historians and city officials narrowing down a list of 15 based on each’s merit and individual contribution. It is likely the remaining names will appear in the park and elsewhere in the BullStreet District.

Ellington's story is an intriguing one. He was born enslaved in North Carolina, and would go on to become a member of the Columbia Health Board in 1875, as well as a City Council candidate and an election manager for his ward. His home still stands in Arsenal Hill.

The park is owned and managed by the city, and includes a fenced dog park and a paved walking trail overlooking a pond with a large oak as a centerpiece. 

Smith Branch Creek can be seen flowing nearby after developers brought it back to the surface to help manage floodwaters.