COLUMBIA, S. C., State capital, and county-seat of Richland County, situated in the centre of the State, on the east bank of the Congaree River, at the head of navigation, two miles below the junction of the Broad and Saluda. It is on the Atlantic Coast Line, the Seaboard Air Line, the Southern and the Co lumbia, N. and L. railroads, 129 miles north west of Charleston, 82 miles northeast of Au gusta, Ga., and 153 miles north of Savannah.
Columbia is one of the hand somest cities of its size in the country and in a district noted for sanatoria. It is built on a sand-hill plateau which forms a bluff 100 feet high at the river and sloping away on all sides, giving excellent drainage. The streets which are 100 feet wide are at right angles to each other, and there are four avenues 150 feet wide radiating f rom the capitol. All the chief streets are boulevards, with handsome shade-trees not only along the sides but in the centre. There is also a fine park.
Public The business buildings are rapidly increasing in size and architectural beauty. The granite State-house, costing $4,000,000 and modeled on the capitol at Wash ington, is one of the most imposing in the South and one of the handsomest in the coun try. Spacious grouncLs surround the capitol, and among the city's attractions are the monu ments, which include a ((Palmetto Tree') in bronze. The executive mansion, the govern ment building, the county courthouse, the city hall, the State insane asylum and State peni tentiary are also noteworthy. The city is rich for its size in important educational institu tions: South Carolina College, now the Uni versity of South Carolina, founded 1801; the Presbyterian Theological Seminary, also very old; Lutheran Theological Seminary; Colum bia Female College (Methodist Episcopal Church South), founded 1859; Allen Univer sity (African Methodist Episcopal), 1881; the College for Women (Presbyterian) 1890; and Benedict College (colored). It has also a well attended public school system and two high schools.
Municipal Conditions.-- The principal streets are asphalt; the roads are chiefly of sand and clay and are excellent. The city owns its waterworIcs and has gas, electric light and power and an electric railway system. Colum bia was the first city in South Carolina, and one of the first in the Union to adopt the com mission plan of government.
Business The city affords one of the most remarkable instances of manufac turing development in the country. It is in the heart of a fertile cotton district and near for ests of pine, oak, walnut and maple; but its site is the key to an important future. A rocicy shelf projecting for four miles from the junc tion of the Broad and Saluda forms the bed of the Congaree, 500 feet wide, which plunges down it in rapids, affording immense power, which is made available by a canal 274 tniles long, 110 feet wide at bottom and 150 at top, with 31 feet fall, furnishing 14,000 horse power, and operating dynamos which create electricity for manufacturing power, light and street rail ways. But the greatest establishments are in dependent of this except as a resource, using steam dynamos — for all Columbia's industries are run by electricity. In 1892, there was one
cotton mill in the city employing 125 men. Now the great Whaley system of cotton mills in cludes four in Columbia, with 197,000 spindles, 4,840 looms and $3,100,000 invested capital. The Olympia mill, with 9 to 10 acres of floor space and over 100,000 spindles, is the largest in the world operating under one roof ; the Granby and Richland are also large and well-equipped mills; and the three, owned by one company and employing almost 3,000 hands, are the nu cleus of a large village of 500 acres owned by the company, with sewerage, fire department, electric street lighting, cottages wired and plumbed, churches, schools, etc. The Columbia Mills Company is also a great organization, capitalized at $1,500,000, and turning out over 20,000 bales of cotton duck a year. Besides this predominant industry, there are growing hosiery works, glass works which utilize the fine sand found nearby, four quarries of fine granite, large lumber works starting up and small mis cellaneous industries. The vast beds of kaolin in the vicinity now supply outside potteries, but local works are contemplated. The United States census of manufactures for 1914 reported 71 industrial establishments of factory grade, employing 2,571 persons, of whom 2,228 are wage earners receiving $1,091,000 annually in wages. The capital invested aggregated $7,348, 000 and the year's output was valued at $6,765, 000: of this, $2,540,000 was the value added by manufacture. The rock ledge before mentioned extends two miles below the city with only four feet of water over it, dropping off to 10 feet or more at Granby. Deep water is now brought up to Columbia by a floating dam 15 feet high, costing $250,000, which enables ves sels of 10 feet draft to come up to the city instead of unloading and trucking up from Granby as heretofore. Two steel steamers run from Columbia to Georgetown and will ultimately go to Charleston. This improvement makes Columbia the great distributing point for central and northern South Carolina.
History.— The town was settled about 1700, but remained farm land till 1786, when the people of the State demanded a capital more centrally located than Charleston, and Colum bia village was laid out. The legislature first met there in 1790. In the Civil War it shared the general fortunes of the State, till Sher tnan's army entered it 17 Feb. 1865. The fol lowing night a fire broke out which lasted all the next day and laid over half the city in ashes, including a number of business blocks, private residences, schools, the railroad station, several churches and a convent, and destroyed a great quantity of cotton. Its development since is part of the general industrial awaken ing of the South. Pop. (1860) 8,052;(1870) 9,298; (1880) 10,036; (1890) 15,353 ; (19a)) 21,108; (1910) 26,319; (1914) 33,500, not in cluding the mill villages, chiefly that of the Whaley mills, with several thousand inhabitants, just outside the old city limits though close by. Since that time several suburbs have been an vexed, giving Columbia a population (1915) 56,992.