South Carolina Confederate Relic Room & Military Museum
The South Carolina Confederate Relic Room & Military Museum is located at 301 Gervais Street in downtown Columbia, South Carolina, in a building shared with the South Carolina State Museum. It was founded in 1896, and is the oldest museum in Columbia and the third oldest in the state. "Pressure" from the United Daughters of the Confederacy was a factor in its creation. Historian James Loewen called it "the least accurate museum operated by a state government anywhere in the United States".
Originally housed in the South Carolina State House, the museum relocated to the War Memorial Building adjacent to the University of South Carolina in the mid-twentieth century. In 1998, it became an agency of the South Carolina Budget and Control Board and moved to the Columbia Mills Building. The museum expanded in 2007, converting the old mill's former cistern into a new gallery.
The Museum received the Confederate battle flag that was removed from the grounds of the South Carolina State House in 2015.
