Columbus Convention & Visitors Bureau

What a cool old courthouse. Really love that Texas is restoring so many of them. This one is beautiful. Completely open to the public.
Only room you can’t go in is the actual courtroom if court is in session.
Luckily for us, it wasn’t. Love the woodwork. Looking at it reminded me of courtroom scenes from old movies.
Don’t forget to look up. One of the most beautiful stained glass ceilings you can imagine.
Another great stop. Not only is this an old Opera House, still in use for a variety of events, but this is where the Chamber of Commerce/​Visitor Center is.
When we stopped, two young ladies were very friendly and helpful is suggesting activities for us to do while in the area.
One of the unique options they have is an audio driving tour around the town. You follow a route and in front of historical buidlings there is a sign indicating what radio station to turn to for information.
We enjoyed our day in Columbus. Make sure you stop in the Visitors Center and say hi!

«Almost» — Life is full of these. Sometimes they shape a person’s character. In this case, a town, Columbus, is a city of «almost». This was almost the capital of Texas. It’s almost where Sam Houston would have fought with Santa Anna. It almost has the largest oak in Texas.
Columbus is a quaint small town that many people almost stop in to discover en route west. It’s almost exactly between Houston and Austin.
Why pull in a Rest Stop when you can stop in Columbus? That was my reasoning in a drive between San Antonio and Houston. I wanted to see the old, big oak trees. I love the character they show with their rough, low hanging, crooked branches, offering comfortable shade and a home to animals for generations. These senior citizens sit as silent witnesses to some key events in Texas history, such as the Runaway Scrape and many storms that took lesser trees who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Similarly, the Colorado River shows its old character, having carved a winding path on which the city of Columbus sits on the south bank. I wanted to check out the scenery and launching areas for kayaks for a potential future trip. I need an overview map.
It was almost 5:00 pm, and I almost missed the visitor center before it closed for the day. Across from the grand courthouse, this visitor center is a small low-​budget operation, but has lots of brochures, maps, some interesting historical material about Columbus, and the friendly staff was very helpful.
The Visitor Center gave me a brochure on Paddling the Colorado River. And the website says «through the town of Columbus you have the opportunity to see wildflowers, birds, turtles and more! This 6.5 mile trail can take anywhere from two to five hours to complete, and the peaceful waters and calm rapids will give you a wonderful day on the river.» –
The staff at the Center also marked on a map where the biggest oaks are located:
«Columbus Oak» is the second-​largest live oak in Texas:
Oak in the middle of Wallace street:
and another street:
You might even say Columbus itself is in the middle of the roads I-​10 and Highway 90 Business. «Middle of the road»… hmmm… That generally means a compromise to leave a problem unsolved (especially in politics), where neither side regarding an issue is really happy. That is not true of these oaks in the middle of the road, however. Whereas, a big city developer typically clears the land of trees and lays down a grid of streets and lots, that was not so, here. They kept old oaks. The people for generations have respected, cared for and love their oak trees.
«The Hanging Tree»: Death row was swift in pioneer days. Now, only Spanish moss hangs.
«Court Oak» (died, but has a marker), where in 1837 Three-​Legged Willie held court under this tree while waiting for the old burned-​down-​to-​keep-​Santa-​Anna-​from-​using-​it courthouse to be rebuilt:
I *almost* held-​off publishing this review, but the city is interesting. Discover it.