[3] It is 28 miles (45 km) southeast of Harrisburg, on the east (left) bank of the Susquehanna River, across from Wrightsville and York County and just south of U.S. Route 30.

The settlement was founded in 1726 by Colonial English Quakers from Chester County, led by entrepreneur and evangelist John Wright.

Establishment of the eponymous Wright's Ferry, the first commercial Susquehanna crossing in the region, inflamed territorial conflict with neighboring Maryland but brought growth and prosperity to the small town, which was just a few votes shy of becoming the new United States' capital.

Though besieged for a short while by Civil War destruction, Columbia remained a lively center of transport and industry throughout the 19th century, and was once the terminus of the Pennsylvania Canal.

Wright built a log cabin nearby on a tract of land first granted to George Beale by William Penn in 1699, and stayed for more than a year.

She lived there, occasionally visiting brother James, ministering to the Native Americans, and raising silkworms for the local silk industry, until her death in 1784 at the age of 87.

County residents – Indians and colonists alike – regularly traveled to Wright's home to file papers and claims, seek government assistance and redress of issues, and register land deeds.

Traffic heading west from Lancaster, Philadelphia, and other nearby towns regularly traveled through Columbia, using the ferry to cross the Susquehanna.

As traffic flow increased, the ferry grew, to the point of including canoes, rafts, flatboats, and eventually steamboats; it became capable of handling Conestoga wagons and other large vehicles.

Due to the volume of traffic, however, wagons, freight, supplies and people often became backed up, creating a waiting period of several days to cross the river.

Pennsylvanians responded in kind; a violent attack on Cresap in October 1730 escalated the situation into a series of bitter (if not bloody) militia skirmishes and heated legal battles.

The situation was not fully resolved until a London peace agreement in 1738, which cooled the colonies' territorial dispute and set the stage for the later codification of the Mason–Dixon line.

In the spring of 1788, Samuel Wright had the area surveyed and formally laid out the town into 160 building lots, which were distributed by lottery at 15 shillings per ticket.

English Anglicans, Scots-Irish Presbyterians, freed African slaves, German Lutherans, and descendants of French Huguenots came to outnumber the first Quaker settlers within a generation.

The same year, the world's longest covered bridge was built across the Susquehanna to Wrightsville, facilitating traffic flow across the river and reducing the need for the ferry.

Like the Erie Canal which was completed in 1825, the very year the legislation package came to be filed, the overall scheme was envisioned when water transport was the fastest means of travel over any long distance, was the best way to ship heavy bulk goods or cumbersome loads—and was before railways came to the public eye and their technology had been refined enough to become working propositions.

The canal was originally planned to extend south from Columbia on the east side of the river, but local property owners objected.

Several years later, a small dam was constructed across the river to form a pool that allowed steamboats to tow the canal boats.

Citing a document drafted by the rioters themselves, historian David Roediger explains that typical of other race riots of the period, white rioters feared "a plot by employers and abolitionists to open new trades to Blacks and 'to break down the distinctive barrier between the colors that the poor whites may gradually sink into the degraded condition of the Negroes - that, like them, they may be slaves and tools'.

By 1852, regular rail transportation from Columbia to Baltimore, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Harrisburg made the town the commercial center for the area halfway between the county seats of Lancaster and York.

On June 28, 1863, during the Gettysburg campaign, the replacement covered bridge was burned by Columbia residents and the Pennsylvania state militia to prevent Confederate soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia from entering Lancaster County.

General Robert E. Lee had hoped to invade Harrisburg from the rear and move eastward to Lancaster and Philadelphia, and in the process destroy railroad yards and other facilities.

Early's command and following Lee's orders, General John B. Gordon was to place Lancaster and the surrounding farming area "under contribution" for the Confederate Army's war supplies and to attack Harrisburg from the east side of the river, while another portion of Lee's army advanced from the west side.

The burning of the Columbia–Wrightsville Bridge thwarted one of Lee's goals for the invasion of Pennsylvania, and General Gordon later claimed the skirmish at Wrightsville reinforced the erroneous Confederate belief that the only defensive forces on hand were inefficient local militia, an attitude that carried over to the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Trolley service for the borough and surrounding area was established in 1893, allowing Columbians to take advantage of economic opportunities in Lancaster and other nearby towns.

Important industries of the time included warehousing, tobacco processing, iron production, clockmaking, and boat building.

From about 1854 to 1900, an industrial complex existed in and around Columbia, Marietta and Wrightsville that included 11 anthracite iron furnaces and related structures, as well as canal and railroad facilities servicing them.

Lancaster County also became a leader in pig iron production during this time, with the river towns' complex of furnaces contributing significantly to its output.

Some of the items produced by its industries were silk goods, lace, pipe, laundry machinery, stoves, iron toys, flour, lumber, and wagons.

Although the United States Census Bureau reported that as of the last year of the 20th century, the population of Columbia had been only 10,311 people, by 2010 this figure had grown to 10,400.