9. 14th Street Bridge (Civil War Skirmish).
Late in the war, on April 16th, 1865, Union General James Wilson arrived on the west side of Girard, now Phenix City, Alabama. Having taken the cities of Selma and Montgomery, Wilson planned an attack on one of the major industrial hubs in the South, Columbus, Georgia that had been protected until that point by its extreme southern location. In a rare night confrontation, Confederate and Union forces met at the gun emplacements and small forts stretched along the Alabama side of the river. Both forces made a headlong run for the 14th Street Bridge at the same time. The confederates in retreat tried to get back to Georgia and the federals trying to capture the bridge to prevent its destruction. The final confrontation happened in front of the bridge on the Georgia side. In a hectic haze of battle and with little illumination, soldiers could not tell Union from Confederate, and Wilson took both the bridge and the city shortly before midnight. Wilson destroyed war-related industries and this skirmish was one of the last confrontations between Union and Confederate soldiers in the Civil War.
Worsley, E. (Summer-1954), "Board of Regents of the University of the University System of Georgia", The Georgia Review, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 218-227.
7. The Mott House
Built by slave labor, the Mott House was completed in 1839 for James Calhoun who was both a mill owner and the city’s mayor. James, cousin to vice-president of the United States John Calhoun, was one of the major land speculators who benefited from fraudulent claims to Creek land. James Calhoun then moved west and became Governor of the Territory of New Mexico. A subsequent owner, Colonel Randolph Mott, was both a union sympathizer and a businessman who supplied confederate troops. When Union General James Wilson took control of Columbus, Mott offered his home as Wilson’s headquarters.
Worsley, E. (Summer-1954), "Board of Regents of the University of the University System of Georgia", The Georgia Review, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 218-227.
15. Iron Works & Arsenal
Since their founding in the mid-19th century, the Iron Works and One Arsenal Place first manufactured agricultural tools for the local plantation economy. During the Civil War, these facilities became a lead producer of textiles and gunboat parts for the Confederate navy. After Union troops burned these important industrial targets at the close of the war, they were quickly rebuilt and subsequently produced industrial ice machines and more recently Char-Broil grills. The Iron Works is now the city’s Convention and Trade Center, while One Arsenal Place is home to Columbus State University’s departments of History and Geography, Art, and Theatre.
Lupold, J., Karfunkle J. and Kimmelman, B. 1977. Columbus Iron Works, Front Avenue between Eighth & Tenth Streets, Columbus, Muscogee County, Georgia, GA. [e-book] Washington D.C.: Historic American Engineering Record. Available through Prints and Photographs Online Catalog.
13. Eagle and Phenix Mills
Owned by William Young, the Eagle Mill was built in 1851. Throughout the city, seventy percent of the mill workers were women and children as they had small and more dexterous hands, and they were cheaper to hire. During the Civil War, Columbus became among the top five Confederate producers of war materials. The Eagle Mill produced gray uniform tweed, cotton duck for tents, cotton for army shirts, and cotton jeans. After being burned by Union troops it was quickly rebuilt and renamed the Eagle and Phenix Mills. Celebrated as an impressive factory that produced a vast array of woolen and cotton items, the mill also saw tensions between workers and owners. In 1896 the mill weavers went on strike and formed the first local of the National Union of Textile Workers in the American South. In the post-Civil War period, African Americans were used as manual labor in the mill, but prior to the 1960s, they were not allowed to run mill machines. Twentieth century owners included Pillowtex and Fieldcrest. The mill closed in 2003.
Worsley, E. (Summer-1954), "Board of Regents of the University of the University System of Georgia", The Georgia Review, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 218-227.
6. City Mills
Seaborn Jones, a wealthy planter and Congressman, moved to Columbus in 1828. Purchasing a tract of riverfront property, he built the city’s first hydro-powered gristmill (corn and flour). In 1865, Union forces burned the City Mills and it was rebuilt in 1869. Horace King constructed one of the mill buildings at this site. In the 1890s the Columbus Railroad Company began generating electricity at the mill to provide power to homes and the city’s streetcars. When its doors closed in 1988, the City Mills was the oldest continually run business in Columbus, as well as the oldest working mill of its kind in the United States.
Historic Columbus Foundation. (Jue 8,, 2004). City Mills. Columbus State University Archives, Columbus, GA. Vertical File:Historic Places & Structures: City Mills, 1 18th St. Report. Historic Columbus Foundation.
10. Phenix City Story
In the first half of the twentieth century, Phenix City, Alabama became a notorious haven of crime. Prohibition in Alabama began in 1915 (ended in 1933) and Phenix City developed as a large-scale alcohol manufacturing and distribution hub, along with gambling and prostitution. Widespread voting fraud maintained the criminal syndicate’s control over the city, and it became known as “sin city.” Local soldiers arriving at Fort Benning for basic training often fell victim to Phenix City’s vice trade. One local lawyer James Albert Patterson ran for Alabama’s attorney general to challenge the criminal syndicate that controlled the city. Shot three times on the streets of Phenix City (1954), Patterson's murder investigation exposed the depth of corruption. Marshal law was established in the community and within six months, the city was cleaned up. The Hollywood film noir movie The Phenix City Story (1955) captured that period.
Barnes, M. (1998). The Tragedy and Triumph of Phenix City, Alabama. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press.
11. Columbus at Play
From the Creek game of stickball ( from which the game of lacrosse developed) in the nineteenth century along the banks of the river, to the twenty-first century whitewater rafting, Columbus’ recreation history is rich and colorful. Recreation occurred at South Commons, just outside the historic downtown. 1834 saw the city host horse races at the Chattahoochee Course and remained there into the twentieth century. By 1887, this racetrack housed a grandstand holding 5000 people. The city’s professional baseball team arrived in 1884, and its baseball stadium, Golden Park was built in 1926. Today, South Commons is home to the A.J. McClung Memorial Stadium (1916), which hosted several annual collegiate football games including the Georgia-Auburn game until 1958. It currently hosts the annual Tuskegee-Morehouse Classic. In 1996 the city built a softball complex and welcomed to the Atlanta Olympic softball events. That year also saw construction of the Columbus Civic Center, which is home to the Columbus Cottonmouths hockey team.
Sports-Reference, "Softball at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Games: Women's Softball," http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/summer/1996/SOF/women-softball.html (accessed January 26th, 2014).
12. Establishing Phenix City.
In June 1832, local entrepreneur Daniel McDougald and Robert Collins from Macon paid $35,000 for the one square mile grant directly across the Chattahoochee from Columbus that the Treaty awarded to mixed blood Benjamin Marshall. They published in the newspaper that they intended to sell lots in a town created on the falls “for milling and manufacturing purposes.” Early in its existence the community was called Sodom. This became Girard, then eventually Phenix City, Alabama. A second town, Brownsville, was located to the north of Girard, and Brownsville was renamed Phenix City in 1883. From its early frontier status, the city evolved in the later part of the nineteenth century as a bedroom community for mill laborers who crossed the bridge each morning to work at the Eagle and Phenix Mill. Girard and Phenix City were consolidated in 1923 and retained the name Phenix City
Wiygul, L. 2009. Encyclopedia of Alabama: Phenix City. [online] Available at: http://encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-2133 [Accessed:12 Mar 2014].
3. Fall Line Rapids
West Georgia Geology
Like its sister cities Macon, Milledgeville, and Augusta, Columbus, Georgia is located on the fall line. This predominant geological feature divides the more resistant geology of the Piedmont and the sedimentary rock Coastal Plain. The city is home to a number of cascades that occur with the rapid drop in elevation of 125 feet in 2.5 miles. Columbus is the northernmost point on the Chattahoochee River that was navigable to steam ships. The river was eventually dammed at multiple points to power a water-driven gristmill, cotton and wool textile production. In the 1890s the city harnessed the river for electrical power that made modern Columbus possible. With the removal of several dams in 2013 the city now embraces the river as recreational center with its 14-mile river walk and whitewater-rafting course.
Duncan, M S. "Fall Line." New Georgia Encyclopedia. 08 February 2013. Web. 18 March 20, 2014.
16. Creek Indians
The Creek Indians, British, and Spanish colonists had established trading relationships in the American southeast since the seventeenth century. The Creeks were adept diplomats between these two European powers. However, the newly formed nation of the United States offered one dominant power block and relationships shifted from trade to the desire for land. Southeastern tribes were forcibly removed during the 1830s. The forced migration of the Creeks from the moist and verdant Chattahoochee Valley began in earnest in 1834. This period, referred to as the Trail of Tears, saw the removal of Creeks to the dry plains of Oklahoma.
Winn, W. W. (1992). The old beloved past: Daily life among the Indians of the Chattahoochee River Vally. Eufaula, ALA: Historic Commission. [Columbus, GA.]
17. Establishing Columbus
There were settlements on both banks of the Chattahoochee prior to the founding of Columbus. The community of Wewoka was home to three hundred people who lived in log cabins and tents along the eastern banks of the river. Residents were involved in trading with Creek deer hunters and Wewoka hosted a major ferry and Inn operated by two Creek chiefs. In 1828 the village was abandoned when Columbus was formally established as a trading town just to the north. The city sits at the highest navigable point on the Chattahoochee River, which, on joining the Flint River to become the Apalachicola River, flows into the Gulf of Mexico.
Mahan, J. B. Columbus: Georgia's Fall Line "Trading Town." Northridge, California: Windsor Publications, Inc., 1986.
5. Slavery and Trade
The trade in slaves and the labor they produced was the foundation of Columbus both in supporting the plantation economy of cotton and the city’s rising industrial power. Slaves built and worked in the mills and they labored as blacksmiths, carpenters, and domestic servants. Because of slavery’s central role, Columbus had three slave depots: Hatcher and McGehee; Harrison & Pitts; and S. Ogletree. Between 1858 and 1860, Hatcher and McGehee sold 465 slaves for an average of 1,000 dollars per slave. Cotton was not the only agricultural product in the region. A Jewish planter, Raphael Moses, came to Columbus in 1849, pioneering the careful packing of peaches in champagne crates, revolutionizing peach production in the state. However the peach industry did not become established until the early twentieth century. Steamboats and then the railroad (1853) were busy linking the city and its agricultural hinterland to regional, national, and international markets
Carey, A. (2011). Sold Down the River: Slavery in the Lower Chattahoochee Valley of Alabama and Georgia: University Alabama Press; 1, Co-published with the Historic Chattahoochee Commission edition.
14. Horace King-Bridge builder
Born into slavery in South Carolina, Horace King (1807-1885) and his owner John Godwin moved to Columbus in 1832 to support the rapid development of recently ceded Creek lands. King and Godwin’s initial contract was Columbus’ first bridge connecting Georgia and Alabama, now known as the Dillingham Bridge. King worked widely throughout the southeast. While none of King’s original constructions (bridges and buildings) are still standing in Columbus, the locations of all current bridges in the downtown area (except the 13th Street Bridge) use the locations that King used. In the post Civil War period, King was elected to Alabama’s House of Representatives twice before moving to La Grange, Georgia. Lupold, J., & Thomas, F. (2004). <em>Bridging the Deep South Rivers: The life and legend of Horace King.</em> Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.
2. North Highland Dam
Mill power
The Chattahoochee River was an essential resource in deciding to locate the new city of Columbus, GA in 1828. The city saw the construction of three dams. As the city was established the City Mills dam was built to capture power to grind corn and wheat and saw lumber for the growing community. It eventually generated electricity for the Columbus Railway Company. The second dam generated power for the Eagle Mill in 1951. The final dam is the North Highlands that began generating power in 1900 for the Bibb City Mill. North Highlands Dam is still in operation today. In 2013 the City Mills and Eagle Mill dams were blown up to create the white water recreation course through the center of Columbus.
The Historic American Engineering Record (HAER). (June 2, 1890). Columbus State University Archives, Columbus, GA. MC14 Collection, “Historic American Engineering Record Collection”. Box 1, Folder 7. Footnotes, no. 2.
Ambush Rapid
Rapid on the Whitewater Express.
Gooder N' Grits
Rapid on the Whitewater Express
Turner's Tumbler
Rapid on the Whitewater Express
Pemberton Falls
Rapid on the Whitewater Express
Waveshaper
Rapid on the Whitewater Express
Habitat Pool
Rapid on the Whitewater Express