1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Columbia (Pennsylvania)

COLUMBIA, a borough of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on the W. bank of the Susquehanna river (here crossed by a long steel bridge), opposite Wrightsville and about 81 m. W. by N. of Philadelphia. Pop. (1890) 10,599; (1900) 12,316, of whom 772 were foreign-born; (1910) 11,454. It is served by the Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia, Baltimore & Washington, the Philadelphia & Reading, and the Northern Central railways, and by interurban electric railways. The river here is about a mile wide, and a considerable portion of the borough is built on the slope of a hill which rises gently from the river-bank and overlooks beautiful scenery. The Pennsylvania railway has repair shops here, and among Columbia’s manufactures are silk goods, embroidery and laces, iron and steel pipe, engines, laundry machinery, brushes, stoves, iron toys, umbrellas, flour, lumber and wagons; the city is also a busy shipping and trading centre. Columbia was first settled, by Quakers, in 1726; it was laid out as a town in 1787; and in 1814 it was incorporated. In 1790 it was one of several places considered in Congress for a permanent site of the national capital.