Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Columbia, AL

Columbia is a town in the northeastern tip of Houston County, in the far southeastern corner of Alabama on the Chattahoochee River at the Georgia state line.

Founded in 1820 by settlers moving onto land ceded by the Creeks in the Treaty of Fort Jackson, Columbia is the oldest settlement in Houston County.

Columbia served as the seat of Henry County in the 1820s and early 1830s, when that county sprawled across much of what is now the Wiregrass region, before losing the seat to Abbeville in 1833.

As a major steamboat port of call on the Chattahoochee River, the town known to many as "Old Columbia" was a leading trading center for the whole Wiregrass region.

Columbia was the largest town in the area during the 19th century and remains one of the area's oldest continuously operating municipalities.

An 1870 incorporation quickly lapsed, and the town was incorporated again on April 29, 1880.

Columbia received its first cotton textile mill in 1891 and its first electric plant in 1892, followed by electric street lights in 1900.

A branch of the Henry County courthouse operated in Columbia from 1889 until 1903, when Houston County was created and Dothan became the new county seat.

Columbia's trade declined after the Alabama Midland Railway bypassed it in favor of Dothan, but the town sustained itself as a farming community through the mid-20th century.

The 2020 census counted 690 residents in Columbia, down from 740 in 2010 and 804 in 2000.