Bluffton bar to tap into site's history as a state Dispensary in the 1890s

The situation has played out at countless Lowcountry parties.

The crowd for that summer soiree you hosted was bigger than you anticipated. Your guests stayed later than you thought they would. And the keg went dry before sundown. The coolers -- overflowing with ice and booze just hours before -- are now filled with lukewarm water and bottle caps.

In this state, stressed hosts have the luxury of running to the grocery store or gas station to replenish their beer and wine supplies 24 hours a day.

Such was not the case from 1893 to 1907 -- and it wasn't just because modern 24-hour convenient stores didn't yet exist.

It was the era of the S.C. Dispensary, the state-controlled liquor monopoly.

In 1892, Gov. Benjamin Tillman, who believed "Prohibition was impractical and the state should make money off men's indulgences," drafted legislation that created the Dispensary as an alternative to Prohibition, according to "South Carolina, A History," by Walter Edgar. Each county had state-controlled dispensers that sold liquor to the thirsty public.

One of them was on the corner of Calhoun and Lawrence streets in Bluffton.

The building that once stood at that site, built in 1855, originally was a shop that sold medicine and household items, according to "A Guide to Historic Bluffton," published by the town's Historical Preservation Society. When the Dispensary was introduced, the building became old town's liquor store, said Thomas Viljac, who is developing the area around the site.

Viljac is using the historic movement as a theme for a new bar he plans to open in August, aptly named Old Town Dispensary. The bar will be a part of the Carson Cottages development on Calhoun Street and will sit just a few hundred feet from the site of the original Dispensary.

While the original Dispensary building has since fallen down -- it's unclear how it happened -- Viljac has used wood salvaged from Bluffton's other historic structures to build the new bar, which is under construction.

He'll even have some antique Dispensary bottles, considered rare because the movement lasted only slightly more than a decade, at the site. The glass bottles -- originally circular but later flask-shaped --usually were stamped with a Palmetto and "SC Dispensary," according to a book about the antique bottles.

The Dispensary was a huge source of revenue for the state, and by 1899, its total profits -- $414,000, or about $7.5 million today -- were equal to nearly half of the state's total tax revenues, according to Edgar's book.

But its success eventually fizzled.

The Dispensary became the "most profound, insidious and widespread agency of corruption" in the state's history, Edgar wrote.

That's something for today's South Carolinians to think about the next time they're buying a case of Bud Light at a 24-hour convenient store at midnight.