Located at the mouth of the Elm River, Columbia was the wintering place of Waneta "Cuthead Band" of Yanctonaise Sioux and the site of a scout's camp from which, in 1866, Sam J. Brown began his famous ride in the blizzard to Fort Wadsworth. In 1877 Clarence D. Johnson arrived and built the first house in Brown County two and a half miles southeast. Julia LaFrombois' half-breed script, the first instrument filed of record in Brown County, enabled Byron M. Smith and Bottineau to locate a townsite there early in 1879, before Thomas M. Marshall surveyed the township in August and called the store thereon the Richmond Store. John R. James became Columbia's first postmaster on February 12, 1880, and Don McKenzie ran the store for Smith, who envisioned a dam and power site below the Elm; some Iowa men took over the project without his leave and had built a ten-foot dam by August 1879 when Marshall surveyed. Governor Ordway appointed Johnson, James, and McKenzie as Brown County's first county commissioners, and they organized the county on September 14, 1880, naming Columbia the county seat. Columbia soon became a thriving town with a steamboat line to LaMoure, and the Nettie Baldwin, hauled overland to Columbia, began regular river trips in June 1883. Aberdeen persistently sought the county seat and, through legislative gerrymandering, frequent elections, and several court actions, finally won a legal election after seven years and secured it in July 1887.