Background on Columbus
Night visitors entering the city's main thoroughfare through spanned arches of iridescent lights have called Columbus, Ohio, "the most brilliantly illuminated city in the country." Located near the geographical center of Ohio, it is the state's capital and largest city with an estimated population of 635,000. One of the city treasures is Ohio State University, a leading research and teaching institution with a student body of more than 50,000, making it one of the nation's top universities. Adjacent to the campus is a trendy neighborhood of galleries, shops, restaurants, and markets. The city is served by six airports, three railroads, and a major east-west interstate highway system. Its balanced economy is based largely the information processing business, finance, transportation, education, and diversified manufacturing.
Noted points of interest include the Ohio Historical Center, Columbus Museum of Arts, Center of Science and Industry, the Columbus Zoo famous for its rare animals, ballet companies and a symphony orchestra, the restored boyhood home of the writer James Thurber, the Ohio Railway Museum, the Santa Maria, a full-scale replica of the flagship of Christopher Columbus, built to commemorate the 500th anniversary of his voyage, and the State House Gardens, site of Ohio's historic Statehouse where the slain Abraham Lincoln lay in state in its rotunda on April 29, 1865.
Columbus was first settled in 1797. It was not until 1812, when legislators designated the city Ohio's seat of government, that it was named after the explorer Christopher Columbus. Today, the Greek Revival Statehouse is one of the oldest state capitols in continuous use in the U.S. The city was incorporated in 1834, around the time that its canal connection to the Ohio River and Lake Erie made it a crossroads of the route used by settlers traveling west. This same canal also permitted the city's merchants and manufacturers to ship goods inexpensively. Columbus also developed a prosperous buggy manufacturing industry that became "the largest of its kind in the world." Rail transportation reached the area in 1850 and made the city a hub in the nation's railroad network. Even prior to the American Civil War, Columbus was stop in the Underground Railroad which helped runaway slaves flee to slavery. The Centennial celebration in 1888 was a reminder to the nation that the area was where the first settlement of America's Northwest Territory was located.
City Description by Gene Williamson