Rankin Square

Rankin Square is a full city block of red brick commercial buildings in downtown Columbus, Georgia. The block follows the gridiron plan surveyed by Edward Lloyd Thomas in 1828 and has served as a commercial center ever since. Its focal point is the Rankin Hotel of 1880, a three-story building with a cast-iron marquee, paired wooden brackets and ground-floor shops, with an ell and an 1880s livery stable in a courtyard behind. Other buildings include an antebellum firehouse of about 1855, an 1889 Victorian facade and the 1913 Winer Building. Mostly in High Victorian commercial style, they form a nearly unbroken streetscape of storefronts. The district sits beside the cast-iron Bank of Columbus and the Springer Opera House, and it was listed for its preserved plan, its architectural continuity and its long retail tradition. At the time of nomination, the hotel stood vacant while a private adaptive-use redevelopment restored exteriors and created courtyards and a pedestrian mall.