Columbus (Georgia) is a city in western Georgia, a consolidated jurisdiction together with Muscogee County. Columbus is a port on the head of navigation on the Chattahoochee River, opposite Phoenix City, Alabama, to which it is connected by bridge. Columbus is a regional transportation, trade, cultural, and manufacturing hub. It has several textile, food-processing, and metalworking industries and a large credit card processing operation. Also important to the city's economy is the adjacent Fort Benning, a large United States Army infantry post. Commercial air transportation is through Columbus Metropolitan Airport.
The city is the seat of Columbus State University (1958) and also a technical college. Local destinations include the Confederate Naval Museum, which features remains of two vessels from the American Civil War (1861-1865) recovered during the 1960s; the Columbus Museum; and the restored 1871 Springer Opera House. Heritage Corner, the city's historic district, features amongst a number of antebellum houses the home once occupied by Dr. J. S. Pendleton, who produced the formula for Coca-Cola. The River walk extends from Columbus to the National Infantry Museum in Fort Benning.
The community, named for Christopher Columbus, was founded by an act of the Georgia state legislature in 1828. Prior inhabitants of the region, Native Americans of the Yuchi people, were moved to the west side of the Chattahoochee River. Within the same year the city incorporated, and the first textile mills were built at the falls of the river. In addition to producing textiles, Columbus also developed as an early iron-manufacturing point, and throughout the American Civil War, it burgeoned into a major center for production of war supplies for the Confederacy. The city was taken by Union forces on April 16, 1865, in one of the last battles of the war. The city was consolidated with Muscogee County in 1971, the first city and county government in Georgia to unite.
Columbus covers a land area of 559.7 sq km (216.1 sq mi), having a mean elevation of 79 m (260 ft). In accordance with the 1990 census, whites are 58.9 percent of the population, blacks 38.1 percent, Asians and Pacific Islanders 1.4 percent, and Native Americans 0.3 percent. The remainders are of combined heritage or maybe failed to report ethnicity. Hispanics, who may be of any kind of race, are 2.9 percent of the people.
Ljao/jan/1v21