1. Columbia’s 575,000-pound fire hydrant is said to be the world’s largest. Who cares if it’s only decorative.
2. The World’s Smallest Police Station in Columbia is only five by 12 feet in area. The police station that replaced it in 1990 is bigger but definitely not as cute.
3. Hootie and the Blowfish got their start in Columbia. Lead singer Darius Rucker met the rest of the band when they were all Gamecock freshmen at the University of South Carolina.
Source: YouTube user Atlantic Records
4. The amateur baseball team the Columbia Blowfish were named for the music group that made the city famous.
5. If you stopped at the right gas station in Columbia in the 1960s you might have spotted Happy the tiger, who lived at the station for a time until the Riverbanks zoo opened.
6. You’ll be greeted with a smile every day driving on I-77 in Columbia. The city’s water treatment facility has a huge water tank with a smiley face painted on it. They needed the tank anyway, so why not make it a happy one?
7. The “Never Bust Chain” eternally links two very large downtown office buildings in Columbia. Artist Blue Sky attached the chain to the two buildings in 2000.
8. The beloved University of Carolina sports teams were named in honor of a South Carolina Revolutionary War hero. Thomas Sumter was said to fight like a gamecock. Thus, the Gamecocks were born.
9. 10 buildings on the University of South Carolina campus alone are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Some of them actually predate the Civil War.
10. People in Columbia drink “cola.” All soft drinks are in fact called “colas,” so you have to specify what kind you want when visiting a restaurant.
11. Seeing a movie in Columbia is no problem, as there are nearly as many theaters in Columbia as there are churches. Seriously.
12. Speaking of movies, Columbia’s been the backdrop for several. “C.E.O.,” “Campfire Tales,” “Chattahoochee,” “Death Sentence,” and “A Guy Named Joe” were all shot in Columbia.
13. One of Columbia’s best-kept secrets was the Inferno ice hockey team. The Inferno has been sitting out several seasons in a voluntary suspension. The hope was that the team would return to a privately financed arena, but no luck yet.
14. Visitors to Riverbanks Zoological Park won’t see any animals sitting in cages or behind bars in the African Plains exhibit. The ostriches, giraffes and zebras roam around freely.
15. The wildly popular pimento cheese is often referred to as “Carolina caviar,” even though it has nothing to do with fish. The Pimento Cheeseburger was first constructed in Columbia, in 1954.
16. Columbia’s 2 Fat 2 Fly Food Truck is so good it got its own TV series "Wingmen" on OWN back in August.
17. Columbia wasn’t the first South Carolina capitol, but it’s the one that stuck. Charleston was the site of the state’s original capitol, but it moved to Columbia in 1790.
18. Appropriately for the state capital, Columbia is actually located only 13 miles northwest of the geographic center of South Carolina. How could it not be the center of attention?
19. Columbia’s two-day Okra Strut fundraiser has been going on since 1973, and growing every year. A lot has changed since the first humble arts and crafts show, but one thing remains: A lot of fried okra is still offered at the festival.
20. Columbia was the very first planned city in the state, but more impressively, it was the second planned city in the entire United States.
21. Did you know George Washington carried a cane? A statue at the state capitol depicts Washington with a cane, that was actually broken by Northern troops marching through South Carolina during the Civil War.
22. It might surprise you, but Columbia was in fact named for Christopher Columbus.
23. The “All About Beer Magazine” sponsors the World Beer Festival each year in Columbia.
24. President Grant’s own federal architect designed Columbia's Historic City Hall. The original drawings of the design by Alfred Built Millet (yes, that was actually his awesome middle name) can be seen on the walls of the courthouse.
25. Columbia has received “All American City” status twice: Once in 1951 and then again in 1964.
26. Columbia is home to the oldest community theater in continuous use in the United States. Town Theater is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
27. The Columbia Marionette Theater is not a joke. It's a theater dedicated solely to teaching the art of marionettes.
28. Artists from around the country and the world tickle the ivories each year at the Southeastern Piano Festival, an international piano competition held in Columbia.
29. In 2013, Columbia was named one of the “Ten Best Cities To Live In” by Kiplinger Magazine.
30. The South Carolina State Fair was first held in Columbia in 1855, but it was put on hold during the Civil War—especially considering that the fair's buildings were actually burned by Sherman's army in 1865.
31. Columbia is home to the largest military training installation in the country, Fort Jackson.
32. Astronaut Charles F. Bolden graduated from a local Columbia high school. Bolden spent four missions in orbit on the space shuttle, and then in 2009 he took the position of Administrator of NASA.
33. If you look hard enough you might stumble onto the system of underground tunnels in Columbia, running underneath the University of South Carolina and the city itself.
34. Before he stole the show on “Parks and Recreation,” Aziz Ansari was kickin’ it in his hometown of Columbia..
35. Spanish settlers released hogs into the wild in South Carolina hundreds of years ago, and descendants of those little piggies can still be in Columbia—where boar hunting is totally legal.
36. There were no paved roads in Columbia until 1908, but there were more than 100 street crossings to keep people from having to step in the mud in between wooden sidewalks.
37. At one point Washington Street was paved with wooden blocks, which seemed to work well until it rained and they floated away.
38. South Carolina was one of the first states to provide care for the mentally ill. The South Carolina Lunatic Asylum (kind of a horrible name) was established in 1821, but faced a slew of problems over the years like poor funding and inadequate room for patients.
39. The first library built as a separate building was constructed at the University of South Carolina in 1840.
40. Elmwood Cemetery was founded in 1854. With large headstones and statues throughout, it's pretty gorgeous as far as cemeteries go. You can get the full story with a moonlight tour that offers insight into all the famous residents buried there over the years.
41. The three-acre Pearl Fryar's Topiary Garden showcases 20 years of Columbia topiary storytelling art. What's really cool about this garden is that many of the plants found in the garden were rescued from local nurseries' compost piles.
What’s your favorite fun fact about Columbia? Tell us in the comments below!
