Columbia, South Carolina - United States of America

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Jun 04, 201

*City official name :Columbia
*Founded date :
*Location :South Carolina State
*Elavation :? ft (? m)
*Area :Approximately ? square miles (? km²).
*Facts :Columbia is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of South Carolina. As of 2005, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the population of the city proper as 117,508 and the metropolitan population 689,878. Columbia is the county seat of Richland County, but a small portion of the city extends into Lexington County. The city's name is derived from a poetic name for America, based on the name of Christopher Columbus, the use of the moniker being first attributed to poet Phillis Wheatley according to popular legend (see Historical Columbia).

Located just 13 miles northwest of South Carolina's geographic center, Columbia is the primary city of the Midlands region of South Carolina, which comprises several counties in the central portion of the state. As such it is centrally located to the rest of the state. Founded in 1786 as the site of South Carolina's new capital city, it was one of the first planned cities in the United States. The area is often cited for its high quality of life offerings, with its many cultural amenities, parks, and recreational features. At the confluence of two major rivers, Columbia is one of the best destinations in the country for kayak and canoe enthusiasts. It is also known for its large number of independent theater groups. Columbia was recently one of 30 communities named "America's Most Livable Communities." The award was given by the Washington-based non-profit Partners for Livable Communities and honors communities that are developing themselves in the creative economy.

A resident of Columbia is known as a Columbian.

For nearly a century before the creation of Columbia by the South Carolina General Assembly in 1787, the site of Columbia was important to the overall development of the state. The Congarees, a frontier fort on the west bank of the Congaree River, was the head of navigation in the Santee River system. A ferry was established by the colonial government in 1754 to connect the fort with the growing settlements on the higher ground on the east bank.

State Senator John Lewis Gervais of Ninety Six introduced a bill that was approved by the legislature on March 22, 1786 to create a new state capital. There was considerable argument over the name for the new city. According to published accounts, Senator Gervais said he hoped that "in this town we should find refuge under the wings of COLUMBIA," for that was the name which he wished it to be called. One legislator insisted on the name Washington, but Columbia won out by a vote of 11-7 in the state senate.

The site was chosen as the new state capital in 1786, due to its central location in the state. State legislature first met there in 1790. After remaining under the direct government of the legislature for the first two decades of its existence, Columbia was incorporated as a village in 1805 and then as a city in 1854.

Columbia received a large stimulus to development when it was connected in a direct water route to Charleston, by the Santee Canal. This canal connected the Santee and Cooper Rivers in a 22-mile section. It was first chartered in 1786 and completed in 1800, making it one of the earliest canals in the United States. With increased railroad traffic, it ceased operation around 1850.

The commissioners designed a town of 400 blocks in a two-mile square along the river. The blocks were divided into half-acre lots and sold to speculators and prospective residents. Buyers had to build a house at least 30 feet long and 18 feet wide within three years or face an annual 5% penalty. The perimeter streets and two through streets were 150 feet wide. The remaining squares were divided by thoroughfares 100 feet wide. The width was determined by the belief that the dangerous and pesky mosquitoes could not fly more than 60 feet without dying of starvation along the way. Columbians still enjoy most of the magnificent network of wide streets.

The commissioners comprised the local government until 1797 when a Commission of Streets and Markets was created by the General Assembly. Three main issues occupied most of their time: public drunkenness, gambling, and poor sanitation.

As the second planned city in the United States, Columbia began to grow rapidly. Its population was nearing 1,000 shortly after the turn of the century.

In 1801, South Carolina College (now known as the University of South Carolina) was founded in Columbia. The city was chosen as the site of the institution in part to unite the state's citizens in the upcountry and the lowcountry. Also, the leaders of South Carolina wished to personally monitor the progress and development of the school. For many years after its founding, commencement exercises were held in December while the state legislature was in session. Columbia received its first charter as a town in 1805. An intendent and six wardens would govern the town. John Taylor was the first elected intendent. He later served in both houses of the General Assembly, both houses of Congress and eventually as governor of the state. By 1816, there were 250 homes in the town and a population over 1,000.

Columbia became chartered as a city in 1854, with an elected mayor and six aldermen. Two years later, they had a police force consisting of a full-time chief and nine patrolmen. The city continued to grow at a rapid pace, as throughout the 1850's and 1860's Columbia was the largest inland city in the Carolinas. Railroad transportation served as a significant cause of population expansion in Columbia during this time. Rail lines that reached the city in the 1840's were first and foremost interested in transporting cotton bales, not passengers. Cotton was the lifeblood of the Columbia community, as in 1850, directly or indirectly, virtually all of the city's commercial and economic activity was related to cotton.

Columbia's First Baptist Church hosted the South Carolina Secession Convention on December 17, 1860. The delegates drafted a resolution in favor of secession without dissent, 159-0. Columbia's location made it an ideal location for other conventions and meetings within the Confederacy. During the Civil War, bankers, railroad executives, teachers, and theologians from several states met in the city from time to time to discuss certain matters.

On February 17, 1865, during the Civil War, much of Columbia was destroyed by fire while being occupied by Union troops under the command of General William Tecumseh Sherman. Legend has it, Columbia's First Baptist Church missed by a hair from being torched by Sherman's troops. As the story goes, the soldiers marched up to the church and asked the grounds keeper if he could direct them to the location of the church where the declaration of secession was signed. The loyal grounds keeper directed the men to another church, a Methodist church, located nearby; thus, the historic landmark avoided being destroyed by Union soldiers.

Controversy surrounding the burning of the city started soon after the war ended. General Sherman blamed the high winds and retreating Confederate soldiers for firing bales of cotton, which had been stacked in the streets. General Sherman denied ordering the burning, though he did order militarily significant structures, such as the Confederate Printing Plant, destroyed. Firsthand accounts by local residents, Union soldiers, and a newspaper reporter offer a tale of revenge by Union troops for Columbia's and South Carolina's pivotal role in leading Southern states to secede from the Union, whereas other accounts (as documented in, for example, James W. Loewen's Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong) portray it as mostly the fault of the Confederacy. Today, tourists can follow the path General Sherman's army took to enter the city and see structures or remnants of structures that survived the fire.

During Reconstruction, Columbia became the focus of considerable attention. Reporters, journalists, travelers, and tourists flocked to South Carolina's capital city to witness a Southern state legislature whose members included ex-slaves. The city also made somewhat of a rebound following the devastating fire of 1865; a mild construction boom took place within the first few years of Reconstruction, and repair of railroad tracks in outlying areas created jobs for area citizens.

The first few years of the 20th century saw Columbia emerge as a regional textile manufacturing center. In 1907, Columbia had six mills in operation: Richland, Granby, Olympia, Capital City, Columbia, and Palmetto. Combined, they employed over 3,400 workers with an annual payroll of $819,000, giving the Midlands an economic boost of over $4.8 million.

Columbia had no paved streets until 1908, when 17 blocks of Main Street were surfaced. There were, however, 115 publicly maintained street crossings at intersections to keep pedestrians from having to wade through a sea of mud between wooden sidewalks. As an experiment, Washington Street was once paved with wooden blocks. This proved to be the source of much local amusement when they buckled and floated away during heavy rains. The blocks were replaced with asphalt paving in 1925.

The years 1911-1912 was something of a construction boom for Columbia, with $2.5 million worth of construction occurring in the city. These projects included the National Loan & Exchange Bank building (now known as the Barringer Building) on Main Street, the Union Bank Building at Main and Gervais, the Palmetto National Bank, a shopping arcade, and large hotels at Main and Laurel (the Jefferson) and at Main and Wheat (the Gresham).

In 1917, the city was selected as the site of Camp Jackson, a U.S. military installation which was officially classified as a "Field Artillery Replacement Depot." The first recruits arrived at the camp on September 1, 1917.

In 1930, Columbia was the hub of a trading area with approximately 500,000 potential customers. It had 803 retail establishments, 280 of them being food stores. There were also 58 clothing and apparel outlets, 57 restaurants and lunch rooms, 55 filling stations, 38 pharmacies, 20 furniture stores, 19 auto dealers, 11 shoe stores, nine cigar stands, five department stores, and one book store. Wholesale distributors located within the city numbered 119, with one-third of them dealing in food.

In 1934, the federal courthouse at the corner of Main and Laurel streets was purchased by the city for use as City Hall. Built of granite from nearby Winnsboro, Columbia City Hall is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Designed by Alfred Bult Millet, President Ulysses S. Grant's Federal architect, the building was completed in 1876. Millet, best known for his design of the Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., had originally designed the building with a clock tower. Large cost overruns probably caused it to be left out. Copies of Mullet's original drawings can be seen on the walls of City Hall alongside historic photos of Columbia's beginnings.

Reactivated Camp Jackson became Fort Jackson in 1940, giving the military installation the permanence desired by city leaders at the time. The fort was annexed into the city in the fall of 1968, with approval from the Pentagon.

In the early 1940's, shortly after the attacks on Pearl Harbor which began America's involvement in World War II, Lt. Colonel Jimmy Doolittle and his group of now-famous pilots began training for the Doolittle Raid over Tokyo at what is now Columbia Metropolitan Airport. They trained in B-25 Mitchell bombers, the same model as the plane that now rests at Columbia's Owens Field in the Curtiss-Wright hangar.

The 1940's saw the beginning of efforts to reverse Jim Crow laws and racial discrimination in Columbia. In 1945, a federal judge ruled that the city's black teachers were entitled to equal pay to that of their white counterparts. However, in years following, the state attempted to strip many blacks of their teaching credentials. Other issues in which the blacks of the city sought equality concerned voting rights and segregation (particularly regarding public schools). On August 21, 1962, eight downtown chain stores served blacks at their lunch counters for the first time. The University of South Carolina admitted its first black students in 1963; around the same time, many vestiges of segregation began to disappear from the city, blacks attained membership on various municipal boards and commissions, and a non-discriminatory hiring policy was adopted by the city. These and other such signs of racial progression helped earn the city the 1964 All-America City Award for the second time (the first being in 1951) and a 1965 article in Newsweek magazine lauded Columbia as a city that had "liberated itself from the plague of doctrinal apartheid."

The area's population continued to grow during the 1950's, having experienced a 40%!i(MISSING)ncrease from 186,844 to 260,828, with 97,433 people residing within the city limits of Columbia.

Historic preservation has played a significant part into shaping Columbia into the city that it is today. The historic Robert Mills House was restored in 1967, which inspired the renovation and restoration of other historic structures such as the Hampton-Preston House and homes associated with President Woodrow Wilson, Maxcy Gregg, Mary Boykin Chestnut, and noted free black Celia Mann. In the early 1970's, the University of South Carolina initiated the refurbishment of its "Horseshoe." Several area museums also benefited from the increased historical interest of that time, among them the Fort Jackson Museum, the McKissick Museum on the campus of the University of South Carolina, and most notably the South Carolina State Museum, which opened in 1988.

Mayor Kirkman Finlay, Jr. was the driving force behind the refurbishment of Seaboard Park, now known as Finlay Park, in the historic Congaree Vista district, as well as the compilation of the $60 million Palmetto Center package, which gave Columbia a distinctive office tower, parking garage, and the Columbia Marriott which opened in 1983.

The year 1980 saw the Columbia metropolitan population reach 410,088 and in 1990 this figure had hit approximately 470,000. The city continues to focus on improving the great quality of life of its citizens and further diversifying the local economy, which will continue to bring growth and vitality for many years to come.

The 1990's and early 2000's also saw tremendous revitalization in the downtown area. The Congaree Vista district along Gervais Street, once known as a warehouse district, became an upscale restaurant, shopping, and bar district. The Colonial Center (formerly known as the Carolina Center) opened in 2002, and brought several big-named concerts and shows to Columbia. The Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center opened in 2004, and a new convention center hotel is under construction, along with several residential developments in the Vista.

However, the redevelopments have not been universally well received and have not brought the number of people back downtown that the city planned. A city-wide streetscape project, begun in 2004 and still incomplete in spring 2006, was a driving issue in the 2006 city elections. Kevin Fisher, an advertising executive, challenged incumbent mayor Bob Coble in a high profile race, resulting in the most expensive mayoral race in the city's history. Fisher aired numerous television ads questioning the city council's handling of the project, among other issues. However, Coble won a fifth term with a 62 percent of the vote.

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Photos

Columbia
Columbia, South Carolina - United States of America

Columbia
Columbia, South Carolina - United States of America

Columbia
Columbia, South Carolina - United States of America

Columbia
Columbia, South Carolina - United States of America

Columbia
Columbia, South Carolina - United States of America

Columbia
Columbia, South Carolina - United States of America

Columbia
Columbia, South Carolina - United States of America

Columbia
Columbia, South Carolina - United States of America