700 TOWNS OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 



lumbia is noted for the beauty of its public and private grounds, and for 

 its beautiful flower gardens. Sydney Park covers twenty acres, furnish- 

 ing attractive promenades. The Agricultural Society of the State has 

 extensive fair grounds, with numerous buildings, and during fair week, 

 in November, as many as twenty thousand persons assemble here from 

 all parts of the State. There are two handsome cemeteries. There are 

 fourteen churches, three free and fifteen private schools. Stores rent 

 for $20.00 to $50.00 a month, dwellings from $50.00 to $500.00 per an- 

 num. The assessed value of real and personal property is $3,000,000, 

 and the estimated true value is given as $5,000,000. The taxes aggre- 

 gate $45,000 yearly, of which $33,000 are levied on property, and $12,000 

 come from licenses. The city debt, incurred for permanent improvements, 

 water works, streets, &c., aggregates $850,000. Interest payable 'half- 

 yearly, and the capital in three installments, running ten, twenty and 

 thirty years. Railroads radiating from Columbia terminate at the fol- 

 lowing points : Charleston, one hundred and thirty miles ; Augusta, 

 eighty-five miles ; Greenville, one hundred and forty-four miles; Wal- 

 halla, one hundred and forty-seven miles ; Laurens C. H., seventy-two 

 miles ; Spartanburg, ninety -four miles ; Charlotte, one hundred and 

 ten miles ; Camden, sixty miles ; AVilmington, one hundred and ninety 

 miles. The Congaree river is navigable for steamboats from the south- 

 west end of the city to the Santee river, which is navigable to its mouth, 

 a waterway more than one hundred and seventy-five miles in length. For 

 many years this highway has been neglected, but as long ago as 1825, 

 two steamboats, besides a number of tugs and canal boats, plied regu- 

 larly on these streams and the Santee canal, transporting annually not 

 less than 30,000 bales of cotton from Columbia to Charleston, witli full 

 return freights. The receipts of cotton in Columbia in 1876 were 12,257 

 bales ; in 1882 they were 24,660 bales; and in 1883 they amount to this date 

 already to more than 38,000 bales. They will overrun 40,000 bales for 

 the whole year, not counting large amounts purchased by factors here 

 from points more or less distant on the railroads, and shipped thence di- 

 rectly. Charleston and Norfolk are the competing points to which pro- 

 duce is shipped. 



The Carolina National Bank has a capital of $100,000, surplus $15,000, 

 and the Central National Bank has a cajjital of $100,000, with a surplus 

 of $20,000. 



The annual yearly sales are given as follows : provisions, $500,000 ; 

 dry goods, $500,000; hardware, $500,000; miscellaneous, $1,000,000. 

 This is, probably, a good deal short of the actual figures. The manu- 

 factures of Columbia are thus stated in the Tenth U. S. Census : 



