Columbia is the capital and one of the largest cities in the US state of South Carolina. The town’s history dates to European settlers who founded a fort and trading post on the west bank of the Congaree River, and in 1754 a ferry service was established across the river to settlers to the east. With natural falls in the river, mills and manufacturing grew, and in 1786 the city was chosen as the new capital of South Carolina and was named Columbia after a vote in the Senate.

Canals were dug as transport routes, which were eventually replaced by the railway. Columbia had just over 1,000 inhabitants in the early 1800s, and it increased grew to over 9,000 in the 1860s, when the city was destroyed in 1865 during the American Civil War. The city was rebuilt after the war, and development became evident in the following decades with e.g. a tram network the streets. Textile factories provided growth in the city, where high-rise buildings were built downtown throughout the 20th century.

Today you can explore a modern city with many sights, attractions and recreational areas. You can start a stroll in the city on Main Street, where you can e.g. see many of Columbia’s tall office buildings. In the street you can also visit the Columbia Museum of Art, whose collection includes paintings and sculptures by old European masters from the Baroque and Renaissance and some art from the 18th-19th centuries.

Main Street also features examples of early skyscrapers, with the 1912-1913 Palmetto Building at 66 meters in height being South Carolina’s tallest building. Close to Main Street is Finlay Park and the Catholic Basilica of St. Peter, which was consecrated in 1909.

At the southern end of downtown stands the South Carolina State House, the state government building. It was built from 1851 as a replacement for Columbia’s first State House, which was built in the years 1786-1790 and which was destroyed during the American Civil War. The war also slowed down the construction of the current South Carolina State House, which, among other things, was destroyed by Northern artillery. The government building was completed in 1907, and you can notice some bronze stars that mark the impact points of the artillery in 1865.

In front of the State House is the South Carolina Monument to the Confederate Dead, which was erected in 1879 in memory of fallen Confederate soldiers in the Civil War that took a heavy toll on Columbia. In the park around the building you can see other monuments and memorials; Among other things, for Strom Thurmond, who represented South Carolina in the United States Senate for 48 years.

Much of Columbia was built after the Civil War, with the Reconstruction Era lasting from 1865 to 1877, and Columbia is home to the Museum of the Reconstruction Era. Here, the time with the re-incorporation of the southern states in the USA is described, and the museum is set up in the Woodrow Wilson Family Home, which was completed in 1871, when the later president Woodrow Wilson was 14 years old.

Wilson lived in the house until 1875. In town, you can also visit the interesting South Carolina State Museum, located on the historic Columbia Canal along the Congaree River. The museum functions as a kind of national cultural history museum for South Carolina, and the museum building is the old textile mill from 1894, the Columbia Mills Building.