From
our past....
Marion County formed Dec. 9, 1811, six years before Mississippi became
the 20th state. On June 25, 1819, Columbia became the state's fourth
municipality. Columbia was named for Columbia, South Carolina, from which
many of the early settlers had come.
An historical marker on the Courthouse lawn
The Courthouse of Marion County, Columbia, faces a wide Main Street on
a plot of land given by John Lott, an early settler. Masons of St. Alban's
Lodge No. 60, F & AM, laid the cornerstones of the Courthouse and of
the first brick of Columbia High School the same day in 1905. The Mississippi
Legislature met twice at Columbia in a wing of David Stovall's three-story
Stovall Springs Hotel and Spa on Pearl River about 2 1/2 miles northwest
of the Courthouse.