Columbus is a city of disputed distinctions

Columbus seems to have more than its share of disputed distinctions.

When the Historic Columbus Foundation unveils its Soft Drink Heritage Trail of historic markers today at the W.C. Bradley Co., there are sure to be the nay-sayers who will say Atlanta is the real home of Coca-Cola, not Columbus.

In spite of the fact that even Coke’s own retired historian says that the formula for Coca-Cola was probably concocted while pharmacist John Pemberton was living and working in Columbus, people still insist that it was born in the Big A. Those people are almost always from Atlanta.

Another disputed distinction involved the national holiday we celebrated this week, Memorial Day. Some historians insist that the concept for the holiday was conjured by a local woman.

Mary Ann Williams was the secretary of the Ladies Memorial Association that was established in Columbus in 1866. She wrote a letter that was published in newspapers all over the place, calling for “a certain day to be observed from the Potomac to the Rio Grande and be handed down through time a religious custom of the country to wreathe the graves of our martyred dead with flowers.”

Two local historians, Daniel Bellware and Richard Gardiner, insist that is part of the considerable proof that establishes Columbus as the home of Memorial Day.

But numerous other cities, from Columbus, Miss., to Waterloo, N.Y., also claim the distinction.

Say what they will, the nay-sayers cannot dispute that the people responsible for Coca-Cola and Memorial Day (some say) are both residents of Columbus to this day. Pemberton and Williams (and Lizzie Rutherford, who also had a hand in the Memorial Day concept) all reside under markers in historic Linwood Cemetery. They rest there along with scores of the Civil War veterans they had wanted to honor back then.

Not far from Linwood, on the side of Veterans Parkway near 14^th Street, another historic marker states that the city was the site of the last land battle of the Civil War (except, being erected in more genteel times, it doesn’t use the phrase “civil war”). It reads:

“Last Land Battle in War of 1861-1865

“The last important land battle of the War Between the States was fought here April 16, 1865, resulting in the capture of Columbus by Federal forces.

“The engagement began directly west of Columbus in Alabama and ended on the Georgia side of the Chattahoochee. The defending line of entrenchments (in Alabama) was more than a mile in length.

“Artillery mounted on high hill was used in the action. Both cavalry and infantry engaged in the battle.”

There is considerable dispute over that distinction.

Last year, local historian Virginia Causey wrote a piece for the paper about local myths, this one among them. Causey said some historians do consider the Battle of Columbus to be the war’s last, but many others disagree.

The National Parks Service, for example, considers the Battle of Palmito Ranch in Texas on May 12-13, 1865, to be the last. And none other than Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States, wrote in “The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government” that “This was, I believe, the last armed conflict of the war.”

Regarding things Confederate, who is going to argue with Jeff Davis himself?

Another historic marker not far away, on the Broadway median between 13^th and 14^th Streets, tells the story of the Civil War Women’s Riot on April 11, 1863.

On that day, about 65 local women armed themselves with pistols and knives and marched on stores along what was then Broad Street, raiding them for food they claimed merchants were hoarding because of a critical shortage.

The riot did occur that day in Columbus, but it hardly made Columbus unique in that regard. Planters all over the South were ignoring government pleas to plant food and were planting cotton instead because it was more profitable. So the food shortage was all over the Confederacy, and especially harsh in urban areas, so riots like the one in Columbus happened all over the place.

But all of this is not to say the city is without undisputed distinction. It’s the undisputed home of RC Cola and Nehi and the world’s first low-calorie cola, Diet-Rite.

And some may recall the installation of a squat concrete monument on Front Avenue near the Promenade declaring Columbus to be the “Center of the Sunbelt South.” While there is little proof, other than a bronze map on the monument, indicating that Columbus is indeed the geographical center of anything, no one appears to be disputing it.

But why would they?

This story was originally published June 2, 2016 at 9:30 PM with the headline "Columbus is a city of disputed distinctions."