Did you know that the lamp poles along the Riverwalk are sequentially numbered? Well, they are! There are currently three separate sections that comprise the whole Riverwalk, with each section starting with number 1, but within each section the poles are sequentially numbered. The three sections, south to north, are: Fort Benning to Eagle and Phenix Mill; Fourteenth Street Bridge to Bibb Mill; Bibb Mill to Oliver Marina. The interruptions in numbering correspond with the interruptions in the construction of the Riverwalk itself – the first interruption between Eagle and Phenix Mill and Fourteenth Street, and the other at Bibb Mill.
Several years ago I had the privilege of serving on the Riverfront Committee of the
Greater Columbus Chamber of Commerce, and in that capacity I had the opportunity to work with Carole Rutland and the Newspaper-in-Education department of the
Columbus Ledger-Enquirer to produce A Guide to the Chattahoochee Riverwalk, The Guide took the form of a newspaper supplement and featured articles on the geology of the Riverwalk (Dr. Bill Frazier), ecology and natural history (Dr. George Stanton), the course and power of the Chattahoochee (yours truly, as derived from Lynn Willoughby’s books), human habitation along the Chattahoochee (Fred Fussell), literature of the Chattahoochee (yours truly again) and the design and construction of the Riverwalk (Ed Burdeshaw). In the course of doing the research for the Guide, Carole and I discovered the fact that the lamp poles were sequentially numbered, and all of a sudden our task of trying to point out to readers the various significant points along the Riverwalk became much easier.
Several times during the next few weeks, Carole and I either walked various sections of the Riverwalk, or, on several occasions we commissioned a “golf cart train,” loaded our bevy of favorite authorities aboard, and cruised up and down the Riverwalk, asking questions and making notes of everything the experts told us. Along on these most informative trips were Virginia Peebles, Billy Winn, Frank Schnell, John Lupold and Fred Fussell. Without them this “Lamp Pole List” would not have been possible, and not nearly so much fun woulda been had!
I’ve attempted to update the list over the past couple of weeks, but since I’ve had available neither the golf cart nor the complete panel of experts, I might have missed a spot or two. Please feel free to contact me if you notice something that needs to be updated.
The List:
Fort Benning to Eagle and Phenix Mill in downtown Columbus (south to north):01-20 Oxbow Meadows Environmental Learning Center. A division of
Columbus State University’s College of Science, Oxbow Meadows uses nature as a classroom, focusing on the river and wetlands. It is the mission of the center to stimulate an outdoor conscience and environmental awareness. Oxbow Meadows also demonstrates how damaged land can be reclaimed and maintained using environmentally sound practices. Long ago, this was the site of a pre-historic Indian village. Early in the 20th century, the land was used for agriculture. In the 1940s-50s, the land was mined for sand and clay used in the production of brick. In the 1970s it became home to a city landfill. In 1996, Columbus State University, with help from the citizens of Columbus, took one of the city’s worst places and created something of lasting value.
The rise on the west side of the Riverwalk is the site of the old Columbus city dump, which operated roughly from the 1950s to the 1970s.
30-80 Oxbow Creek public Golf Course is located on ground that until recently was abandoned sand and gravel mines.
43 Due west on the riverbank is one of the most significant Indian sites on the river. Kyle Mound, at 25 feet high the highest mound in the region, was described by Benjamin Hawkins in 1797. The last part of Kyle Mound washed into the river in about 1895.
44-67 The gray stuff hanging from the trees is commonly referred to as Spanish moss. Neither Spanish nor moss, Tillandsia usneoides is a member of the pineapple family and is an epiphyte, meaning it draws its nutrients from the air and rain and grows on other plants. During the 19th century Spanish moss was widely used as an upholstery filler. (Watch out, though, as it harbors lots of chiggers, or red bugs!)
Also in this area is a stand of the native shrub buckeye, used by Indians and early settlers to “poison” the water and bring fish to the surface where they could be scooped up. In the early spring, buckeye has a red bloom.
56 The rusted piece of machinery is the remains of an old sand dredge.
61 A stand of chinaberry trees.
88 In this area, you will be “ponds” on both sides of the Riverwalk. Some are oxbows, or old river channels, and some are abandoned sand, gravel, or clay mines. The two are distinguished by shape -- the oxbows tend to be long and narrow. Look for various types of waterfowl in this area and the area ahead.
89-148 The large open field to the southwest of the Riverwalk is an experiment in recycling. The field is periodically sprinkled with waste water from the Water Resource Facility. Hay is then grown, baled, and later shipped to other areas where it is used as construction filler.
107 Toward the horizon to the southwest are the jump towers at Fort Benning. The “pond” on the north side of the Riverwalk is an example of an oxbow. The boxes on the poles in the water are put there for nesting wood ducks.
124 Another oxbow. There are many oxbows out in the woods, but they aren’t visible from the Riverwalk.
138 Ponds such as this are probably the result of mining and are not true oxbows.
150 A Woodlands Era Indian site, 2000 years old, excavated by the Smithsonian in 1962.
162 South Columbus Water Resource Facility. Also a Mississippian Period Indian site, 1000 A.D.
175 On the Alabama side is where Cochagaleechee Creek empties in the river. This was an important Indian site, as it marked the south end of Coweta Town. The Corps of Engineers operated a boatyard near here in the 1890s. On the Georgia side of the river are the hulls of two wooden steamboats.
178 Parking and the end of auto access on this part of the Riverwalk. The swampy area on the side opposite the parking lot typifies river bottom land.
216 A stand of river cane.
221 The large red and white sign in the tree, called a “day marker,” is a navigational tool used by tugboats that occasionally come up the river. Ironically, day markers are used to navigate turns in the river at night. A light beam is cast from the tugboat to the day marker and the tugboat navigates toward the marker; the process is repeated from marker to marker through the curved part of the river.
225 The buildings on the hill on the west side are the Riverwind Apartments in Oakland Park subdivision.
230-251 Rigdon Park, a public park owned by the City of Columbus. Public restrooms, ample public parking and easy access to the Riverwalk.
269 On the Alabama side of the river is where the main square ground for Coweta Town, the capital of the Creek nation, was located. In 1739,
General James Edward Oglethorpe, a trustee of the British colony of Georgia, traveled here to meet with Indian leaders to secure a treaty that would, among other things, grand him permission to establish the colonial capital of Savannah on Georgia’s Atlantic coast.
277 The site of Marshall’s Indian Trading Post of the 1790s.
281 Alabama State Docks.
287 The green leafy vine covering everything in sight (except in winter) is kudzu. Imported from the Orient in the early part of the twentieth century to help combat erosion, kudzu grows very fast and has taken over large portions of the South. The subject of many poems, songs, jokes, stories, and films, kudzu has become a Southern icon.
289-293 Bull Creek Bridge. Just to the north of here was located a mill dam that was built before the city of Columbus was founded.
299 Bull Creek site. This prehistori archaeological site is one of the most important historical resources in the Chattahoochee Valley, having produced a great deal of important information about Indians who were living on the site of Columbus at about the time Christopher Columbus made contact with America. First discovered in 1924, the Bull Creek site was further excavated in 1928, 1936, 1945, 1950, 1956, and 1959. Institutions conducting the excavations included the City of Columbus, the Smithsonian Institution, Fort Benning, and the University of Georgia. Among the spectacular artifacts from this site are a number of dog-effigy vases and tobacco pipes that served as the nucleus for the founding of the Indian Section of
The Columbus Museum and were the first exhibit ever installed in the Museum.
This is also the site of the end of a railroad track that operated in the 1920s.
305 The site of a historic Creek house.
311 An early Mississippian archaeological site, approximately 1000 years old.
313 The rusted wreck in the edge of the water is the remains of a tugboat and barge which belonged to Columbus businessman Thurston Crawford and sank in the 1960s. This is also the site where the last of the wooden steamboats, the George Miller, was dismantled.
332 A stand of river willows. Important to stabilize the river, limbs from the willows were used by early settlers in building dikes and dams. In the more developed areas of the Riverwalk, the native river willows have been removed. Many of the willows that you see in these areas are a completely different variety of willow from the native; they are cultivated weeping willows that were planted when the Riverwalk was constructed.
337-340 Mulberry trees. In the spring and summer the mulberries fall from the trees and stain the ground and the sidewalk a deep purple. In the early days of Georgia there was an attempt to grow silkworms, but the silkworms did not like our particular variety of mulberry tree.
341-347 Rotary Park and boat ramp. Public restrooms.
347 Bulldog Bait and Tackle. Bulldog is representative of baitshops that operate nea waterways all over the South, dispensing such items as fishing licenses, maps of the River, and vast amounts of bait, tackle, snack food beer and fishing advice. Not all baitshops, though, sport a barbeque pit in the side yard or a worm vending machine on the front porch.
350 Port Columbus Civil War Naval Center is a museum dedicated to preserving, exhibiting, and interpreting items related to the naval aspect of the Civil War. The museum houses the remains of the steam-powered Chattahoochee and the iron-clad Jackson, two rare and historic gunboats used by the Confederacy.
356-366 Georgia State Docks. Occasionally this area is blocked and you will need to follow the well-marked detour. Slightly away from the River, on the detour, you will see Memorial Stadium and South Commons Softball Complex, built to host the women’s fast-pitch softball games of the 1996 Olympics. Before the construction of the softball complex, this area was occupied by the Bull Creek Golf Course. Memorial Stadium, still used for high school and college football games, is a memorial to the soldiers of World I. In the nineteenth century a very popular horse racetrack existed in this spot.
366 On the side of the Riverwalk away from the river, a stand of chinaberry trees.
368 Homicide Victims Memorial.
370 Before the river was so controlled by dams as it is now, various unusual currents appeared along its length. Boils, suckholes, and eddy waters were abundant. Indians had mythological explanations for these phenomena to make it seem as if it were not the water that did the bad things. Near this spot was the famous Wynn’s Eddy, which challenged many a boatsman.
379 Steps up to the
Columbus Civic Center, host to many public events. This is also the site of the old Columbus Municipal Auditorium, which hosted a variety of events between the time it was built in 1950 and the time was torn down in the 1990s and replaced with the Civic Center. For most of the twentieth century the biggest event of the year in Columbus was the Chattahoochee Valley Exposition, held on these grounds and referenced in
Carson McCullers’ novel and play,
The Member of the Wedding.
380 Mary Freeman Landing, in operation as a boat landing around 1840, and perhaps before.
385 The site of the old Pest House, Columbus’s hospital until the 1840s. At the turn of the century this was the city dump.
397 Site of Kennard’s Ferry, which operated in the 1820s. Before there was a Columbus, possibly the very first white settlement was located here.
400 The steps lead up to Golden Park, Columbus’s baseball stadium. It was in this stadium that the U.S. team won the gold medal in the women’s fast-pitch softball games of the 1996 Olympics.
403 James E. Oglethorpe Memorial Bridge.
410 When the river level is down, you can see the remains of a large old wing dam, built in the nineteenth century and intended to divert the river to the other side. The dam reached almost two-thirds of the way across the river.
412 In low water, you can see the hull of a wooden steamboat quietly resting on the bottom of the river.
415 In low water you can see “the ways,” a place where steamboats and the Ram Jackson, also known as the “Gunboat Muscogee,” were constructed during the eighteenth century.
417 The Promenade Amphitheatre. The amphitheatre and the nearby gazebos serve as the sites of many weddings.
418 On the hill is the site of the old Chattahoochee Brewing Company which operated around 1900.
422 On the hill is the site of a cotton press, also operating around 1900.
423 The last commercial old-time river dock was here. It ceased operation in the early 1950s.
424 In the gazebo on the hill is replica of the Liberty Bell, cast in the same English factory as the Liberty Bell.
426 The Coca-Cola Space Science Center, created and operated by Columbus State University, opened in 1996. The Center is a regional resource for teachers and students, providing unique on-site learning experiences. The Center includes the Omnisphere Planetarium, a Challenger Learning Center, exhibit areas and solar viewing at the Mead Observatory.
429 The site of an old ice factory.
433 The
Columbus Ironworks Trade and Convention Center. Originally constructed in 1853, this was once a bustling manufacturing center where on of the country’s earliest ice-making machines was built. Skilled laborers made armaments for the Civil War and steam engines for boats that plied the Chattahoochee. After the war, the Ironworks made items such as plows, syrup kettles, cane mulls, and woodburning cookstoves. Restored in the late 1970s, the building is now a unique meeting and exhibit facility that features the original brick walls and timbers. It is a popular meeting site for groups throughout the region, hosting events such as knife and gun shows, art shows, and high school proms.
Located directly on the riverbank is the city wharf, which has been here since the founding of Columbus. The concrete slab boat ramp was added in the 1890s.
438 The railroad bridge above was built in the 1890s, replacing a wooden bridge built by Horace King in the 1860s. The bridge base is a remnant of the Horace King bridge.
440 The arched entrance to the first segment of the Chattahoochee Riverwalk, which opened in 1992.
446 Dillingham Bridge, built 1910-12, replaced a double wooden bridge built in 1832 by
John Godwin and Horace King. In Phenix City’s heyday during the 1940s and 50s, various juke joints and nightclubs lined the streets on the Alabama side of both the Dillingham and Fourteenth Street Bridges.
447 Across the river in Alabama is the site of the infamous “Bug House.” It collapsed on April 21, 1936, killing 24 and injuring 83 people. “The Bug” is a local name for the illegal lottery, and older people in Phenix City are often heard to date other events as before of after “the Bug House fell in.” To date, the catastrophe is the worst in
Phenix City history. The town was “cleaned up” when, following the assassination of the Alabama Attorney General-elect on a Phenix City street in 1954, marshall law was declared.
448 On the Alabama side is the Phenix City Amphitheatre, constructed in the 1990s. The Phenix City Riverwlak begins there and continues north to Fourteenth Street. The large creek that spills into the river near the amphitheatre is Holland Creek.
454 Steps up to street level, down to water. At street level is Columbus State University’s art and theatre complex.
465 Public restrooms, steps and a ramp up to street level.
469 Fishing wells were constructed in the Riverwalk to allow fisherman closer access to the river. From here you are likely to see people fishing from small jonboats, turtles sunning on rocks, and comorants diving for fish.
481 A plaque commemorating the October 12, 1992, Columbus Quincentennial and Riverwalk opening.
484 The two newer buildings on the hill here are the Synovus office complex and the Riverclub, a private dining club.
485 Another fishing well.
489 The rocks in this part of the river indicate the start of a series of falls that in earlier times were called Coweta Falls. These falls mark the fall line that divides the Coastal Plain to the south and the Piedmont to the north. Before dams were built, Coweta Falls continued to West Point, Georgia, approximately 50 miles north. Native Americans were attracted to this site because of the good fishing; later, European settlers were attracted by the availability of water power for operating mills.
This spot marks the northernmost point of navigation on the Chattahoochee River.
The
dam you see is the first in a series of ten that span the river between here and West Point. There are three dams south of Columbus: Walter F. George Lock and Dam at Fort Gaines, Georgia, which forms Lake Walter F. George; George W. Andrews Lock and Dam; and Jim Woodruff Lock and Dam at the Florida state line, forming Lake Seminole.
The large brick building is Eagle and Phenix Mill, the largest mill in the south in the late 1870s. Constructed in 1851, the mill supplied an assortment of cotton and woolen goods. The mill burned on April 17, 1865, during the Battle of Columbus, only to rise from the ashes as Eagle and Phenix in 1866. It has recently been converted into
luxury condominiums.
There are plans underway to breach the Eagle and Phenix Dam in order to create an urban whitewater rafting zone along the River.
The part of the building jutting farthest into the water is the Powerhouse, constructed in 1899. It is a virtual “museum” of hydroelectric technology, having until very recently produced electricity with the use of turbines dating from 1899 and electrical generators installed between 1908 and 1921.
In the distance you can see the newly constructed Thirteenth Street Bridge.
The Riverwalk is interrupted here and continues one block to the north, at Fourteenth Street. Plans are currently underway to connect these two sections of the Riverwalk.1 Mott’s Green. In early Columbus this was a public garden area along the river. In the twentieth century the Carnegie Library was located here. Today this is the site of the TSYS office complex. The Mott House has been preserved and incorporated into the TSYS complex. The Fourteenth Street Bridge into Phenix City has recently been converted into a pedestrian bridge. This is a good place to access the Phenix City Riverwalk.
40 A railroad bridge built in 1910.
51 City Mills and dam. This was the first dam built across the Chattahoochee. City Mills started in 1828 as a grist mill, owned by Seaborn Jones. That facility was destroyed at the end of the Civil War, and Horace King rebuilt the mill in 1869. That portion of the mill has changed in various ways but still stands. The large brick portion was built in 1890 to mill flour, but the primary products were cornmeal, grist, and animal feed.
(The lamp pole numbers get a little confusing near the Riverwalk Pavilion.)
115 Riverwalk Pavilion, with restrooms, water fountains, parking, and picnic tables. Street access to Riverwalk Pavilion is from First Avenue, near 35th Street.
The Riverwalk is interrupted here by Bibb dam. To the right (east) of the dam, you can see the remains of Bibb Mill, which burned to the ground on October 30, 2008. Plans are underway to complete this portion of the Riverwalk.(Street access to this portion of the Riverwalk is limited. Your best bet is Linden Point, in the heart of the Bibb City neighborhood, at lamp pole #23.)
1 The remnants of Bibb Mill, and the dam. Be sure to walk to the scenic overlook at the top of the dam and look down the river for one of the most dramatic views of the entire length of the Riverwalk.
10-11 Buckeye plants.
11 Notice the large rocks in this area. Many such rocks were blasted away from this area in order to create the Riverwalk.
23 There is limited parking here. The covered bridge crosses a small creek where, in the early 1900s, were located a lake and a park known as Linden Point. A pavilion stood on top of the hill, to the north of the lake.
29 Arrow plants at the water’s edge.
37 The J.R. Allen Parkway crosses the Chattahoochee.
64 End of Riverwalk. You can see Oliver Dam from here; if you continue walking north one-half mile to Oliver Marina, there’s parking and the River Road intersection.
Plans are underway to complete the unfinished sections of the Riverwalk: Eagle and Phenix Mill to Fourteenth Street Bridge, City Mills to Bibb Mill, and the half mile (on the far north end) to connect the existing Riverwalk to Oliver Marina.
