Columbus (Ohio) - geography.

« replica of the flagship of Christopher Columbus, built to commemorate the 500th anniversary of his voyage.

The city also supports a symphony orchestra and opera andballet companies. A leading attraction is the Columbus Zoo.

Noted for its success in breeding rare animals, the zoo has extensive exhibits with natural-like habitat, including a huge coral reefaquarium.

The Franklin Park Conservatory, built in 1895, contains in its large, glass-enclosed space duplicates of many of the world’s ecosystems. V RECREATION Columbus fans enthusiastically support teams of The Ohio State University, particularly the Buckeyes football team, which plays games at Ohio Stadium during the fall.

TheColumbus Crew, a Major League Soccer team, plays at Columbus Crew Stadium, and the Columbus Blue Jackets, a National Hockey League team, plays at the NationwideArena.

A minor league baseball team offers professional play in summer.

Numerous golf courses are scattered about the metropolitan region and are well patronized duringmuch of the year.

Beulah Park and Scioto Downs racetracks operate regular seasons.

The largest and best-known recreational activity in Columbus is the Ohio State Fair,operating annually for two weeks in midsummer.

More than a million visitors attend each year. VI ECONOMY A balance among manufacturing, technology, research, and financial activities has helped Columbus’s economy to continue to boom.

Much of the city’s expansion resultsfrom its function as a sophisticated service center.

By 1990 manufacturing occupied only 12 percent of the area’s labor force.

That contrasted with services, includinggovernment, finance, and transportation and utilities, which accounted for almost 60 percent of all employment. The two largest employers in Columbus are state government and The Ohio State University, with well over 20,000 employees each.

Other important employers are Hondaof America, Nationwide Insurance, AT&T, and Anheuser-Busch.

Smaller in size are companies with national headquarters in the city such as American Electric Power(electricity generation), The Limited (retail clothing), and Wendy’s International (fast-food outlets).

Battelle Memorial Institute, which conducts research for private industryand government, has its world headquarters in Columbus.

Leading information providers making their home in Columbus are the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), apioneer bibliographic and information network; Chemical Abstracts Service, a division of the American Chemical Society, producing the world’s largest databases of chemicalinformation; and CompuServe, offering a spectrum of online and network services for businesses and individuals. Columbus lies along Interstate 70, a major east-west route following the route blazed by the National Road.

Interstate 71 connects Columbus with both Cleveland andCincinnati.

The Port Columbus International Airport, located to the northeast of the city, was established in the 1920s as one of the major stops for early transcontinentalflights.

Today the busy airport serves airlines flying to both domestic and international destinations.

Rickenbacker Airport, to the south of the city, is an important facility forair cargo operations.

It was named for Eddie Rickenbacker, famed World War I pilot and business executive who was born in Columbus. VII GOVERNMENT The municipal government of Columbus consists of a mayor and seven city council members elected citywide to four-year terms.

The administrative branch is led by themayor.

The city council is the legislative authority for the city. VIII HISTORY In 1812 the Ohio State Legislature, after searching for a central location for the state capital, chose the present site of Columbus on the Scioto River opposite Franklinton, athriving trade center since 1797.

The legislators voted to name the community in honor of Christopher Columbus, and government offices were moved there in 1816 fromChillicothe, Ohio’s first state capital.

With its population peacefully coexisting with the region’s Wyandot and Shawnee peoples, Columbus grew rapidly; in 1824 it absorbedFranklinton and became the seat of Franklin County. The site of Columbus was not only centrally positioned, but it also offered an easy crossing point of the Scioto River.

The high east bank also provided a site safe from allbut the highest floods.

(The limits of that safety were reached in 1913 when record-breaking rains brought a devastating flood, considered the city’s worst disaster.)Stimulated by advantageous access to transportation, Columbus grew steadily throughout the 19th century.

The Ohio and Erie Canal passed close to the city and a shortfeeder canal opened in 1831, connecting Columbus to both Lake Erie and the Ohio River.

In 1833 the National Road, a primary route used by settlers traveling west,reached the city.

Railroads began to arrive in 1850, bearing the famous railway names of Baltimore and Ohio, Norfolk and Western, New York Central, Chesapeake andOhio, and Pennsylvania.

The city, incorporated in 1834, reached a population of almost 20,000 by 1860. The American Civil War (1861-1865) resulted in considerable military activity in Columbus.

Army camps and other installations were set up, the best known of which wasCamp Chase, the largest military prison for Confederate soldiers.

The foundations of manufacturing were laid in the second half of the 19th century.

Wagon and carriagemanufacture flourished, partly because of the strategic location of Columbus along major routes and partly due to the prosperity of Ohio agriculture and a correspondingneed for farm wagons.

Food processing and the manufacture of shoes, mining machinery, castings, communications equipment, and fire engines formed the basis of earlyindustrialization.

The city is also important in labor history; the American Federation of Labor was founded in Columbus in 1886 during a period when workers wereagitating for an eight-hour work day. Columbus prospered in the second half of the 20th century, even as much of the rest of Ohio began to suffer industrial decline.

The city’s good fortune was largely becauseof the growth of state government, higher education, finance and insurance, and light industry.

This prosperity has given to Columbus an above average standard of living,a relatively crime free environment, and a general sense of well being. Contributed By:Allen NobleMicrosoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation.

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