I recently wrote about the famed “Flatiron building” in New York City, undergoing a transformation from housing offices to upscale apartments. While I have never seen the “Flatiron” building in person, I once stayed a few days in a somewhat-similar building in downtown Columbus, Ohio, the downtown Hilton Hotel, as described earlier.

My wife had a conference there, a number of years ago, and I was fortunately able to take a few days’ vacation and go with her. It only cost me airfare, food, and a little bit of spending money.

So while she was in classes, I got to explore a little bit of a town I had heard of many times, but never before experienced.

That has been one of the blessings of both of us being sent to occasional work conferences, over the years.

Sometimes the other one of us is able to come along for the ride, basically for the price of personal travel and food costs. That has given us a much wider exposure to this great country we live in. I have been very grateful to have had those opportunities, over the years.

Columbus, Ohio, is one of a number of cities across the globe named for the Italian explorer who is credited with discovering America in 1492. Columbus, Georgia is another; so is Colombo, the capital city of the island nation of Sri Lanka, where my wife and I have several friends, through a Rotary program offering one-year scholarships to international students to come to Georgia to meet and learn about us, as we learn about them. A wonderful program! More on that later.

Columbus, Ohio, is a city of some 905,000 residents, with over 2.2 million people in the three-county metropolitan area. It was built on the confluence of the Scioto and Olentangy rivers, and was founded in 1812.

There were several unusual things about the city I found when I was there. One was the occasional but repeated gaps in the buildings in the downtown area – almost like missing teeth. I surmised that may have been due to buildings lost to fires, and never rebuilt. I have never seen a city with that many gaps in its downtown before.

It felt very strange, walking around. But, that does happen.

Another was the unusual story in how the city came to be the state’s capital. In Georgia, we have 159 counties because, as the population expanded westward from the Atlantic Ocean, the various local “founding fathers” wanted citizens in the new areas to be no more than a one-day ride by horse or mule from a county’s courthouse, where official business took place and was recorded: Voting, recording deeds and marriage licenses, holding trials, etc.

A similar thing happened in Ohio, as the state was settled and the population grew. Their capital shifted three times, just as Georgia’s did (Savannah, Milledgeville, and finally, Atlanta) – once to the north, once to the south, and finally to Columbus, as the more central region.

Here is how Wikipedia described what happened: “After Ohio achieved statehood in 1803, political infighting among prominent Ohio leaders led to the state capital moving from Chillicothe to Zanesville and back again. Desiring to settle on a location, the state legislature considered Franklinton, Dublin, Worthington and Delaware [counties] before compromising on a plan to build a new city in the state’s center, near major transportation routes, primarily rivers. Franklinton landowners had donated two 10-acre plots in an effort to convince the state to move its capital there. The two spaces were set to become Capitol Square, including for the Ohio Statehouse and the Ohio Penitentiary.”

A plaque I saw inside the capitol building explained further: Local leaders were so intent on making their city the state capital, they “sweetened the pot” by offering $50,000 to build that state penitentiary – a huge sum, in those days! Probably equal to $50 million in today’s dollars. The state legislature finally agreed – and that is how Columbus became not only the new state capital, but also home to the state’s first penitentiary! (No word on how many state officials became residents of the latter, later on. I am sure there were more than a few.)

The other unusual feature of Columbus Ohio is that a permanent park exists on the river, downtown, where a replica of the largest of Christopher Columbus’ three ships, the Santa Maria, is docked, and visitors can tour it, and see for themselves what the fellow who is crediting with the discovery of our country used to cross that fearsome unknown, over 500 years ago, possessed only with his own certainty that he would come across a land of untold riches, and backing from Spanish Queen Isabella of Castile.

An amazing feat of courage and certainty.

More on that, in my next installment.

Stay tuned!

Rafe Semmes is a proud graduate of (“the original”) Savannah High School and the University of Georgia. He and his wife are both longtime Rotarians, and live in rural eastern Liberty County with their various orphan felines. He writes on a variety of topics, and may be reached at rafe_semmes@yahoo.com.