Columbus - A Town Transformed

Over the last several centuries, the view from Columbus's 180-foot bluffs has been transformed as the Mississippi River shifted course, parts of the bluff crumbled into the river, and the bustling town that once stood below largely disappeared. During the Civil War, people on these bluffs and in the town below watched and heard the Battle of Belmont across the river on November 7, 1861, as Confederate troops repelled a Union attack led by a future President of the United States. Columbus was fortified by the Confederates, while Belmont was the battle site and Cairo was an early Union stronghold at the meeting of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. In 1864, members of the 4th US Colored Heavy Artillery, one of two core regiments garrisoning Columbus, were photographed on the bluffs with much of downtown Columbus visible behind them, including warehouses, docks, and railroad tracks. By the early 20th century, the town had already suffered floods, fires, and economic hardship, and in 1927 the Mississippi permanently overran its banks, took a new course, claimed much of historic Columbus, and forced the town's relocation to the bluffs, where it remains. A Union engineer map made shortly after the Confederates abandoned Columbus in 1862 recorded fortifications and trenches whose traces can still be seen.

Kentucky · United States