History

Recent History

Columbus continued to diversify its economy toward the end of the twentieth century. As well as a manufacturing centre, the city is home to more than fifty insurance companies. Ohio State University is also a success story, having developed into a major centre of postgraduate study.

Modern Day History

Columbus' importance as a transportation hub continued into the twentieth century. With the advent of air transport, Columbus became a stopover on transcontinental flight routes. In the 1970s - a period of urban decline in the US - Columbus was the only major city to record an increase in population. This coincided with a major overhaul of the city centre, which rippled out into the suburbs.

Pre 20th Century History

Ohio was originally settled by tribes of American Indians known as the Illinois. Between 1650 and 1700 these tribes were killed or driven out by a more powerful tribe, the Iroquois, who wanted the Ohio area for its deer and beaver. By the 1740s, both the French and the British were trying to get control of the northwestern part of North America. Most of the remaining American Indian tribes in Ohio allied themselves with the French against the British. The French admitted defeat in 1763, and ceded all of their North American possessions to the British. By the 1770s, most of the American Indian tribes were now allied with the British against British rebels who were fighting for an independent United States of America. The Indians had always allied themselves with whichever side seemed likely to put the fewest settlers on Indian land. After the French failed, then the British, there was no other ally to turn to. Once the rebels won the American War of Independence in 1776, settlers started arriving in Ohio in greater and greater numbers. The Indians tried to resist but were finally beaten in 1794 at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. After that, Ohio Indians were forced by the government to go and live on reservations in Indiana, and later in Kansas.

Marietta, one of the first new towns founded, was established in 1788. By the early 19th century immigrants from Ireland, Switzerland and Germany began arriving. The location for Columbus, which was always intended to be a state capital, was decided upon by the Ohio General Assembly in 1812, and work was largely completed by 1816. In 1831 the connection to the Ohio-Erie Canal between the Ohio River and Lake Erie was built and the National Road was joined to it two years later. By mid-century the town had developed into a railroad hub, and by the later part of the nineteenth century Columbus was a thriving business town, famous all over the country for its manufacture of horse-drawn vehicles.