Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Services in Columbia, PA

Columbia was founded in 1726 by English Quaker John Wright, who built a log house on the east bank of the Susquehanna River in Lancaster County and established Wright's Ferry in 1730, the first commercial Susquehanna River crossing in the region.

The town was formally laid out in 1788 by Wright's grandson Samuel and renamed Columbia, after Christopher Columbus, in a deliberate bid to attract the new nation's capital.

Columbia famously fell just one vote short of becoming the capital of the United States when Congress voted on the permanent seat of government in 1790.

Columbia was incorporated as a borough in 1814, formed out of Hempfield Township.

The 2020 census counted 10,207 people in Columbia, and Census QuickFacts counts about 4,568 households — a remarkable stability for a town that already had more than 12,000 residents back in 1900.

During the Civil War in June 1863, retreating Union forces burned Columbia's mile-long covered bridge across the Susquehanna to Wrightsville to halt the advancing Confederate army at the river.

Columbia was an important stop on the Underground Railroad, where residents including wealthy lumber merchant Stephen Smith helped enslaved people escape to freedom.

Columbia became a major 19th-century transportation hub where roads, the Pennsylvania Canal, and railroads converged, and the river towns around it made Lancaster County a leader in pig iron production.

Columbia is home to the National Watch and Clock Museum, one of the very few museums in the world devoted entirely to horology, holding more than 12,000 timepieces and related items.

Wright's Ferry Mansion, built in 1738, survives in Columbia and houses a noted collection of early 18th-century Philadelphia furniture.