Columbia Walking Tour and Historic District
Columbia, ca 1920.
Tyrrell County was established in 1729 as a precinct of Albemarle County. In 1799, six years after
Columbia was chartered, the town was selected as the seat of Tyrrell County.
Norfolk & Southern Railroad Depot, Columbia, ca 1920.
The name of the town was changed to Columbia in 1810, to avoid confusion with another Elizabethtown
in North Carolina. The 1870 Federal census suggests a population of slightly over one hundred people, who
subsisted on livelihoods such as mercantile trade, milling, county administration, and maritime occupations
>Scuppernong River and J. W. Branning Mill at Columbia, ca. 1920
including boat building. Columbia's population increase after the Civil War was largely the result of the
expansion of the local lumber industry.
Scuppernong River Bridge, Columbia, ca 1920.
Approximately 900 residents now call Columbia home.
