October 12, 2021

Christopher Columbus

By roads-rus

I was rather dismayed when so many people were off for Columbus Day on Monday, October 11. I thought that we were not supposed to honor this explorer any longer. The Italian community in my hometown, St. Louis, used to gather in Tower Grove Park near where I lived every Columbus Day to join a parade to celebrate this man who “discovered” what everyone called The New World. The statue of Columbus that they used to gather at has been removed. After much controversy it was taken down and stored for its own safety. Why are we still celebrating Columbus Day?

Then I got to thinking about all the towns that were named for Columbus. There are 23 towns and cities in the United States named Columbus. Even entire countries like Columbia in South America have been named Columbus, Columbia, or locals have created some variation like Columbia Heights, a suburb of Minneapolis, that was named after Christopher Columbus. Colon in Panama and the city of Colombo, Brazil, were named for him. Shouldn’t they all be thinking of changing their names?

There are many towns in the United States called Columbia. Many of them were named for Christopher Columbus. They include the Columbias in California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Columbia is an important city in the middle of Missouri. It was named for Columbus.

There are at least 14 towns and cities with significant populations in our country named Columbus. Columbus, GA is home to more than 190,000 people. The photo just above was taken in its maritime museum. Columbus is the capital of Ohio and a huge and important city. There are towns with thousands of people living in them called Columbus in Alabama, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin. Columbia Junction in Iowa was named for Christopher Columbus. There are smaller or unincorporated Columbuses in the states of Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, North Dakota, New York, and Nevada. There are, in other words, plenty of towns named Columbus. Are any of them thinking about changing their names?

There are 7 Columbus counties in the USA.

Hank

About roads-rus

Since the beginning, I've had to avoid writing about the downside of travel in order to sell more than 100 articles. Just because something negative happened doesn't mean your trip was ruined. But tell that to publishers who are into 5-star cruise and tropical beach fantasies. I want to tell what happened on my way to the beach, and it may not have been all that pleasant. My number one rule of the road is...today's disaster is tomorrow's great story. My travel experiences have appeared in about twenty magazines and newspapers. I've been in all 50 states more than once and more than 50 countries. Ruth and I love to travel internationally--Japan, Canada, China, Argentina, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, etc. Within the next 2 years we will have visited all of the European countries. But our favorite destination is Australia. Ruth and I have been there 9 times. I've written a book about Australia's Outback, ALONE NEAR ALICE, which is available through both Amazon & Barnes & Noble. My first fictional work, MOVING FORWARD, GETTING NOWHERE, has recently been posted on Amazon. It's a contemporary, hopefully funny re-telling of The Odyssey. View all posts by roads-rus
This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 12th, 2021 at 8:19 pm and posted in Remembered Destinations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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