[5] Columbus is the second most populous city in Georgia (after Atlanta), and fields the state's fourth-largest metropolitan area.

This was for centuries the traditional territory of the Creek Indians, who became known as one of the Five Civilized Tribes of the Southeast after European contact.

Those who lived closest to white-occupied areas conducted considerable trading and adopted some European American ways.

Founded in 1828 by an act of the Georgia Legislature, Columbus was situated at the beginning of the navigable portion of the Chattahoochee River and on the last stretch of the Federal Road before entering Alabama.

The plan for the city was drawn up by Dr. Edwin L. DeGraffenried, who placed the town on a bluff overlooking the river.

In addition, textile mills were developed along the river, bringing industry to an area reliant upon agriculture.

The Columbus Iron Works manufactured cannons and machinery for the nearby Confederate Navy shipyard, Greenwood and Gray made firearms, and Louis and Elias Haimon produced swords and bayonets.

As the war turned in favor of the Union, each industry faced exponentially growing shortages of raw materials and skilled labor, as well as worsening financial opportunities.

[10][11] Unaware of Lee's surrender to Grant and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Union and Confederates clashed in the Battle of Columbus, Georgia, on Easter Sunday, April 16, 1865, when a Union detachment of two cavalry divisions under Maj. Gen. James H. Wilson attacked the lightly defended city and burned many of the industrial buildings.

Factories such as the Eagle and Phenix Mills were revived and the industrialization of the town led to rapid growth, causing the city to outgrow its original plan.

The Springer Opera House was built during this time, attracting such notables as Irish writer Oscar Wilde.

By the time of the Spanish–American War, the city's modernization included the addition of a new waterworks, as well as trolleys extending to outlying neighborhoods such as Rose Hill and Lakebottom.

The secretary of the association, Mary Ann Williams, was directed to write a letter inviting the ladies of every Southern state to join them in the observance.

[12] The letter was written in March 1866 and sent to representatives of all of the principal cities in the South, including Atlanta, Macon, Montgomery, Memphis, Richmond, St. Louis, Alexandria, Columbia, and New Orleans.

[12] In 1868, General John A. Logan, commander in chief of the Union Civil War Veterans Fraternity called the Grand Army of the Republic, launched the Memorial Day holiday that is now observed across the entire United States.

She wrote that Logan "said it was not too late for the Union men of the nation to follow the example of the people of the South in perpetuating the memory of their friends who had died for the cause they thought just and right.

In The Genesis of the Memorial Day Holiday in America, they show that the Columbus Ladies Memorial Association's call to observe a day annually to decorate soldiers' graves inaugurated a movement first in the South and then in the North to honor the soldiers who died during the Civil War.

Expanding on its industrial base of textile mills, the city is the home of the headquarters for Aflac, Synovus, and TSYS.

From the 1960s through the 1980s, the subsidized construction of highways and suburbs resulted in drawing off the middle and upper classes, with urban blight, white flight, and prostitution in much of downtown Columbus and adjacent neighborhoods.

Early efforts to halt the gradual deterioration of downtown began with the saving and restoration of the Springer Opera House in 1965.

Through the late 1960s and early 1970s, large residential neighborhoods were built to accommodate the soldiers coming back from the Vietnam War and for those associated with Fort Benning.

Other notable projects were the expansion of the Columbus Museum and road improvements to include a new downtown bridge crossing the Chattahoochee River and into Phenix City.

The National Infantry Museum was constructed in South Columbus, located outside the Fort Benning main gate.

In 2002, Columbus State University, which previously faced expansion limits due to existing residential and commercial districts surrounding it, began a second campus downtown, starting by moving the music department into the newly opened RiverCenter for the Performing Arts.

Such initiatives have provided Columbus with a cultural niche; downtown features modern architecture mixed among older brick facades.

Demolishing an up-river dam allowed the project to construct the longest urban whitewater rafting course in the world.

[17] The city predicted that an additional 30,000 soldiers would be trained annually at Fort Benning in upcoming years due to base realignment and closure of other facilities.

The Fall Line is where the hilly lands of the Piedmont plateau meet the flat terrain of the coastal plain.

As such, Columbus has a varied landscape of rolling hills on the north side and flat plains on the south.

Fort Moore children are zoned to Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) schools for grades K-8.