Things to do in Columbia

Visiting Columbia

Columbia is Lancaster County's river town, founded as Wright's Ferry where Quaker settler Susanna Wright ran the Susquehanna crossing, and seriously considered as a site for the new national capital in 1790. In June 1863, townspeople and militia burned the mile-long Columbia-Wrightsville bridge to halt the Confederate advance across the river, days before Gettysburg. Wright's Ferry Mansion, Susanna's 1738 stone house, still stands furnished to the period.

The National Watch and Clock Museum holds one of the largest horological collections in the world, from tower clocks to wristwatches, and the First National Bank Museum preserves a 19th-century banking floor intact. The Turkey Hill Experience, just off Route 30, lets families invent virtual ice cream flavors and sit in the milk truck, while the Columbia Crossing River Trails Center anchors the Northwest Lancaster County River Trail, 14 miles of riverside rail-trail running north past Chickies Rock's cliff-top overlook.

Columbia has also become an antiques town: Burning Bridge Antiques Market and the Tollbooth Antique Marketplace fill old downtown warehouses with hundreds of dealers between them. Columbia Kettle Works brews on Locust Street, and the surrounding blocks of iron-fronted storefronts and rowhouses reward a walk before dinner.