- 800 Gervais was Built around 1850 as the South Carolina Railroad Department. This depot was the first passenger-freight rail facility in the city as well as the first outside of Charleston when the line was extended from the port city.
- The addition of the railroads in the 1840’s were a large part of Columbia’s rapid growth. At the time the railroads primarily transported cotton, which was the focus of economic activity at the time.
- 800 Gervais was the last of the 17 stations to be added to The Branchville and Columbia Railroad. The railroad to Columbia was opened on June 20, 1842 – the depot station was fully constructed a few years after.
- By 1860 it was one of two depots on Gervais St. (at the time referred to as “Hells Half Acre” due to all of the bars and brothels nearby).
- In 1861, the Young Ladies’ Hospital Association established a “rest station” at the railroad depot. Known as the Wayside Hospital, it provided food and drink to soldiers and aided the sick and injured in transit. By the war’s end this hospital had treated over 75,000 men.
- In 1865 Union forces partially burned the original depot to the ground. It was rebuilt in 1870 and continued to serve as a train depot for decades to come. The 800 Junction space is located in what was the rear of the rebuilt train depot.
- 800 Gervais functioned as a train depot until the tracks were shut down in 1980 to ease congestion downtown. The city dug trenches for the tracks to sit down into before covering them with roadways.
- 800 Gervais St. is one of 41 contributing properties that make up the West Gervais Historic District. This area was listed in the National Register in April of 1983.
- 800 Gervais underwent extensive internal renovations (per the National Register of Historic Places Inventory – Nomination form) in 1983. Jillian’s opened in the fall of 1997 and was a staple of the vista until it closed its doors in 2016.
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