♪ ♪ (male narrator) Columbia isn't really a city.

It's a mirror.

It's the reflection of South Carolina, the Palmetto State's hometown.

It's a reasonable facsimile of every city, town, community, village, hamlet, and crossroads in South Carolina.

If you took dead aim with quadrants and plumb bobs, the exact geographic center of South Carolina would be around Horrell Hill, but using every other measuring stick available, Columbia is the heart, the core, the bulls-eye of South Carolina.

♪ In Columbia you find everything the state has been, is now, and will be in the future.

If it were show business, you'd say Columbia did imitations.

It's the parrot perched on the shoulders of the palmetto tree.

Like all parrots and mirrors, it picks up both the good and the bad.

And as a mirror, it reflects the beauty spots and the pockmarks.

Let us look at what makes up this face of Columbia.

The face has fresh-washed freckles, running mascara, a broken nose, pretty eyes, dimples and dentures, big and little noses, ears that wiggle and listen, bushy brows, long lashes, buck teeth and false ones, too, noses that need powdering, eyes that sparkle.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (female narrator) For all Columbia's masculine strength and muscular dynamic characteristics, the city is still feminine, as are all the world's great cities.

♪ If Charleston is South Carolina's dowager old grandmother and Greenville is the expanding young teenager, Columbia is South Carolina's mature but still swinging mother.

♪ She can be haughty and aloof or warm and compassionate.

Columbia is feminine, all right, because she is ever-changing.

She can give you a gentle embrace, or she can let you down hard.

♪ There are some folks who can't take these moments of crankiness which are mixed with the grand and glorious moments of tenderness.

♪ (male narrator) Columbia disturbs many people.

They don't understand her.

She presents them problems because she has so many faces, yet she has but one.

Too many try to sit her down on the analyst's couch and probe beneath the old girl's bonnet.

They don't need to do this.

Columbia may be complex, but she isn't confused.

And the folks who try to figure her out by slide rules and Freudian formulas will miss a lot.

♪ (female narrator) These people never get to see the broad expanse of this city.

They never feel the city's sweep, nor do they understand her scope.

Those people never get to wear that wonderfully lyrical name of Columbian.

♪ For each one who leaves Columbia, many others move in.

They come by car, rail, air, and some even in boats.

And others have walked.

But they come, and they keep on coming.

There are some 300,000 people in the greater Columbia area, over a quarter of a million people.

A tenth of South Carolina's population is concentrated within the area.

And even if they don't stay, it's as if Columbia were below sea level, and everything and everybody else in this state eventually floods, flows, or trickles into Columbia.

♪ ♪ (male narrator) Some entrances are beautiful.

The twice "All-America City" signs proudly proclaim some municipal bragging.

The new $7 million metropolitan jetport handles approximately 250,000 passengers annually.

♪ (male narrator) The new jetport is a status symbol for the city.

Thousands of visitors are greeted for the first time by the Columbia Metropolitan Airport, a gleaming, sparkling, modern sight.

It says to the visitors, "Okay, friends, you're in a pretty progressive, "pretty exciting place.

"You're in Columbia, South Carolina, "one of the South's fastest-growing and most up-to-date cities."

♪ ♪ (male narrator) Two major bus lines and three major railroads join the airlines in bringing people to Columbia and helping take Columbians to the world.

♪ (male narrator) If you've spent time at the terminals and stations, you know what an amazing world it is as people arrive and leave.

There's the waiting... seemingly endless for some, who wait for mysterious or sad things.

But waits can be filled with the expectancy of a new bride or a new student or a mother who hasn't seen a daughter in months.

More kissing, hugging, and tears are used at the local stations than anywhere else in the city.

♪ ♪ (male narrator) It's a transportation hub, as major highway arteries feed the capital city from every direction: north, south, east, and west.

♪ ♪ One of the biggest drawing cards that makes people come to Columbia is that it's the center of government.

Government, which is Columbia's largest business, bringing in millions of dollars yearly and casting an influence felt in every area of activity.

♪ The General Assembly alone, which meets an average of five months a year, has a $1 million price tag.

The lawmakers, the sightseers, the lobbyists, and other interested parties spend time and money in the capital city.

♪ Of the state's 18,000 state employees, over 9,000 of them live and work in Columbia.

The various state payrolls pump millions of dollars into the city's economic bloodstream, ranging from the occasional few dollars drawn by part-time hourly employees to the $20,000-plus salaries paid at the top level of government.

The annual budget for running the overall state government is $400 million.

♪ (male narrator) Columbia also seems to be where all the political doings and carryings-on begin and a great many of them end.

While there are politicians in the upper and lower state, Columbia has to be the place they come to have their say and seek their way.

At times, the corner of Main and Gervais resembles a campaign poster board.

During an election year, tons of campaign material emanate from Columbia supporting everyone from dogcatcher to governor.

The Statehouse is filled with folks asking, "Did you hear?

What's going on?"

And all of this has been going on in Columbia since the city began.

♪ (male narrator) Columbia's role as the center of government and the capital dates back to the late 18th century, when increasing population in sections far-removed from coastal regions made a central location of the capital necessary.

♪ (male narrator) Of course, this brought a hue and cry from the Lowcountry, who didn't consider anything 50 miles away from the coast civilized, but this attitude didn't last long.

♪ (male narrator) The General Assembly passed an act in 1786 to locate the city at its present location, but it wasn't given a name.

Naming the state's capital came up for another vote in the General Assembly.

(male narrator) And lots and lots of names were thought to be right for the city.

Many people wanted it named after their families.

Others sought to name it after famous men, including George Washington and Christopher Columbus.

(male narrator) Three proposed names were Refuge and Washington and Columbia.

Columbia won by a vote of 11 to 7.

The year 1790 saw the first meeting of the General Assembly in the just-named Columbia.

Work on the present capitol building, the famed Statehouse, was begun in 1855.

It was finally completed and gave occupancy to the General Assembly for the first time on Nov. 23, 1869.

And since that time, stirring words have rung through the hallowed halls as the laws and machinery to make our state run and prosper have been fought over and fought for by thousands of men from every county in the state.

(male narrator) There are dozens of suburbs and communities surrounding Columbia.

These satellite areas feed off and depend upon the mother ship, Columbia.

Some of South Carolina's most beautiful homes are in these sections, and during the spring, the yards and gardens are an explosion of colors and breathtaking beauty that rival any garden elsewhere in South Carolina or in the world, for that matter.

The residential areas of Columbia compare with any city in the nation.

You can find homes of every architecture and price range: modern hedge-to-hedge with colonial, Swiss chalets running into ranches.

But Columbia is also a city where abject poverty is just a few hundred yards away from the rich opulence.

The Department of Public Welfare spends almost $2.5 million annually on the needy.

Welfare and medical fields in Columbia are far above the state's average in facilities and finances.

In the area, there are almost 10,000 hospital beds, including 7,000 beds at the State Hospital, Columbia, Baptist, Providence, and Good Samaritan-Waverly Hospitals, along with the Veterans Administration, Fort Jackson, and State Park Hospitals.

♪ Columbia hospitals are bulging at the seams, and expansion is called for at all.

There are over 300 doctors in the area and some 1,500 registered nurses, and these professional men and women of medicine are the best in the business.

Nurses in Columbia are proud of their work.

The patients' needs and care are the prime concern of these angels in white who minister to those of us sick in body, spirit, and mind.

These dedicated nurses get their training here and stay to provide the benefit of their knowledge.

The nurses are symbols of hope to the sick, and they're symbols of protection and mercy to those who have loved ones who are sick.

These men and women are on duty around the clock, ready and able to care for the illnesses and the emergencies of the community.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ The face of Columbia.

It's a happy face... ♪ a sad face.

♪ It's a puzzled face... ♪ a quizzical look.

♪ It's a bashful gaze... ♪ a pout, a leer... ♪ a look... ♪ a laugh.

♪ It's a tear... ♪ a sneer.

♪ (male narrator) Columbia is a city where you can get the best cup of coffee... ♪ and the worst piece of pie in the same diner.

And right down the street, you can get the worst cup of coffee and the best piece of pie in another.

♪ There are more retail sales in Columbia than anywhere else in the state, close to $250 million a year.

♪ ♪ There is more general merchandise on display in Columbia than there is in some entire sections of the state.

♪ (male narrator) Columbia is the shopping bag and catalog for countless other South Carolinians who come here on regular trips and occasional sprees.

There are few items that can't be found in the city, provided you look long enough.

There seems to be a sale every day and in every store.

There are bargain basements, first floors, second floors, bargains everywhere you turn.

Columbia is dollar-down, dollar-a-week, and several thousand dollars at one time.

It's instant credit and instant purchase.

It's coins jingling in your pocket and crisp cash on the hip.

It's a prosperous place.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (male narrator) Columbians are sentimental over old, crumbly, eyesore buildings which they restore.

But Columbians also swell with pride over a new multimillion-dollar high-rise structure.

♪ Sometimes you get the impression she is the overgrown county seat of an entire state.

She's a curious blend of chickpeas and chic fashions, Minnie Mouse and miniskirts, country club and country music, all of it side by side, rubbing mink against denim and brogans against ballet slippers.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Columbia is briefcases and shopping bags.

♪ It's hunting a parking place, discovering the new parking lot, and looking across at the new post office.

It may be the only city where you can park in a million-dollar lot to walk across the street to a multimillion-dollar post office to buy a five-cent stamp.

♪ ♪ (male narrator) Columbia is a city that maintains the downtown image and still lives the easy country life.

It's walk, don't walk, loading zone only, and post no bills.

A million dollars' worth of construction, and she never really takes the expansion in stride.

Nothing really suits her.

♪ The city seems in a constant state of tearing down and putting up, and stores spring up where homes once were, and service stations sprout like wildflowers at every corner.

Everyone complains about the inconveniences of the latest construction, but no one really minds, for every brick laid, every nail driven, every support braced, every hole drilled, every bolt tightened, means the city is growing and going forward, and Columbia loves it, the bustle and the hustle and the confusion and the piles of materials and the rerouted traffic and the noises of construction.

Sometimes it sounds like her theme song.

♪ ♪ Columbia wants it bigger and better and newer and faster and now.

She wants it not yesterday nor tomorrow, but now, today, this very moment.

Contentment, thank goodness, isn't part of the Columbia vocabulary.

Columbia is sort of a maverick city, riding hell-bent into the future, a future which promises to be even more golden than the present.

♪ ♪ Bank receipts in the city are setting records every quarter as Columbia is the financial center of the state.

♪ (male narrator) But there are some who would seek to relieve the city of some of its currency.

Most of them stay at the foot of Hampton Street in a little city within the city.

The South Carolina Department of Corrections... or maybe you'll recognize it as the state's penitentiary.

Pen-town's 1,800 population is as much a part of the city as the hundreds of law officers headquartered in Columbia, the hub of the state's law enforcement.

♪ ♪ (male narrator) Sometimes the name of the game in Columbia seems to be traffic, traffic, traffic, traffic, a frustrating, tense, and tangled monster that seemingly grows bigger every day.

Somehow the traffic officers and the city planners seem to stay up with the traffic... at least it always seems to be a tie.

Most everyone who comes into the city every day seems to get home every night.

And if traffic bothers you, pity the poor patrolman who has to stay in it.

♪ (male narrator) From the capital city, instant fingers of communication stretch to every one of the 46 counties.

A teletype compiles and chatters away twenty-four hours a day at SLED headquarters, where there are also on file some 200,000 fingerprint cards and other modern crime-fighting equipment.

♪ ♪ ♪ (female narrator) Columbia is old-fashioned and hippy-dip swinging in the very same moment.

♪ She has good points and points not so good.

♪ There's one thing Columbia doesn't have: boredom.

Not a hint of it, not a trace.

♪ (male narrator) Columbia is South Carolina's swingingest city.

It's a "switched-on" place, the young people say.

More single girls and more single fellows live here than anywhere else.

It's one of the few places where there's something happening, something going on for every age group.

While some cities wear various themes-- a great place for single girls, great for bachelors, a fine place for young couples, retired folks, middle-agers-- well, Columbia doesn't.

Columbia is a place for people of all ages, with or without husbands, wives, boyfriends, or girlfriends.

One thing is sure: There is so much romance in the Columbia air that you aren't likely to remain single for very long unless you're mighty skillful.

♪ (female narrator) The trouble with living long with the lady you love is that soon you start to see the circles underneath her eyes instead of that merry twinkle in them... same with the city.

It doesn't do to count the cracks in the picture windows while ignoring the magnificent view outside.

♪ ♪ (male narrator) Part of the face of Columbia is the face of concentration, students and teachers concentrating over books, papers, and studies in the classrooms of higher education at the University of South Carolina, Columbia College, Allen University, Benedict College, Lutheran Seminary, Columbia Bible College.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ College students are part-time Columbians, but they like what they discover in the capital city as well as the discoveries in labs and lectures, and they stay and they become part of the community, proud of its educational facilities.

♪ One of the most amazing phenomenons of the Columbia educational scene is the unbelievable growth of the University of South Carolina.

The university literally has a year's growth every couple of weeks.

♪ ♪ ♪ Dormitories have a way of filling up space faster than land can be readied.

In a way, the growth of the university represents the way the city is growing and expanding.

The university shows the way, and these young faces become part of Columbia's collective face.

♪ ♪ (male narrator) Another group of young faces helped shape the Columbia visage.

These young faces are those worn by the raw, green recruits at Fort Jackson.

♪ ♪ Just a few days away from mother's nest and right into the loving arms of a ripe, old sergeant whose bite is as bad as his bark.

♪ (male narrator) And what a transformation takes place.

Hair today and gone tomorrow.

♪ A young man's crowning glory soon will be a barber's clowning story.

And every one of the recruits, every shaggy-headed one of them, gets familiar with the Spruce Shop quicker than they wanted to.

♪ (male narrator) Fort Jackson adds $62 million annually to the Columbia economy.

This United States Army Recruit Training Center is a world of its own.

Construction going on at the Fort keeps a major part of the local labor force busy.

Since its establishment in June 1917, Fort Jackson has played a vital role in training our armed forces: infantrymen, cavalrymen, artillerymen, paratroopers, balloon and aircraft pilots, pigeons, and even war dogs.

♪ Every year some 100,000 soldiers are trained at Fort Jackson.

Since Fort Jackson gives Columbia the status of an Army town, a great many retired officers and enlisted men retire in the Columbia area and become active, vital contributors to the community.

♪ The city of Columbia and Fort Jackson enjoy the finest of relationships.

[rhythmic clapping] (male narrator) Columbia is a city of uniforms.

Every street corner has a uniformed person on it.

These are people doing services for the people of the community.

Some protect, some nurse, some instruct, some entertain.

These folks in uniforms give the city a feeling of security, a sense of well-being, a feeling of solidness.

You can count on these people.

You recognize them by the clothes they wear.

You respect them for the job they do and the services they render.

A city of uniforms is a good city, a confident city, a responsible city.

But just look about the city.

Look behind, beneath, over, and under.

Pull out the drawers, open the closets.

Poke anywhere you like.

It's a perfectly marvelous place: matchless, egotistical, and humble.

[rhythmic clapping] [rhythmic clapping] [rhythmic clapping] [rhythmic clapping] It's girls in short skirts and coiffeurs that appear to be pumped up with air.

[rhythmic clapping] It's boys with 10 pounds of bags and pants so tight their eyes bulge.

It's old men, toothless, red-eyed, and fighting the morning sun as they grope for a half-empty wine bottle.

It's old women, lumpy little things, bracing against the wall in the shadows, clutching brown bags holding goodness-knows-what.

It's a self-anointed preacher-evangelist standing on the corner exhorting the pagans to repent while the pigeons coo and search around the street for peanuts.

And if you look closely at the dingiest of houses, the most ramshackle Victorian place on the block, you'll find a touch of style, a dusty trace of something lovely.

It's a traffic cop pausing to pass time with pretty pedestrians.

It's a second-floor optometry shop which, if you don't want to leave them, will examine your eyes while you wait.

It's jewelry, religious articles, furniture, appliances, pizza parlor, all under the same roof.

It's short shorts and fully-packed capris, a sunbonnet and a racing helmet, bald heads and snap brims.

It's classy windows and glassy eyes.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Columbia races the clock to work every morning, and when it gets there, it can't find a parking place.

♪ It hustles to a quick lunch of hamburgers and French fries, then has to stand in line to get served, lining up at a table or counter fresh out of mustard but full of heartburn.

But it's always late for dinner.

When it gets there, it must hurry through the meal because there's a show or a PTA meeting.

♪ Columbia is men and equipment working and no left turn, but there's room to work, room to live .

There's room to play.

♪ ♪ Yes, there's even room to burn.

♪ ♪ But there is no room to doubt.

Columbia looks at everything optimistically, too busy to look back and weep.

Columbia is a flash of silver flask and the clatter of empty beer cans.

It's hamburgers for 15 cents and fresh greens and tomatoes at the Farmers Market.

The Farmers Market is one of those cities within a city.

It's a fascinating place that never sleeps and a year-round dispenser of produce and home-grown goods.

The Farmers Market, to some people, is the most important tie they will ever have to the city.

And at the fairgrounds, you have two major gathering places: Carolina Stadium, where the Gamecocks roost, and the State Fairgrounds, where thousands of folks visit once a year in October.

♪ ♪ It's a service station for every 3,000 cars, although it seems every 300 cars or even every 30.

But it's true that there are always 3,000 cars for every one parking place.

♪ ♪ (male narrator) Columbia invents superlatives and collects people.

♪ ♪ ♪ Native Columbians aren't rare birds, but you don't find them in coveys.

People who now claim Columbia as home are legion.

♪ These are people from the small towns and the farms who come to Columbia to work, and stay.

These are people from the largest metropolitan centers of the world who have been sent to Columbia to work.

They came a little resentfully, even bitterly, but they soon were swayed by the city's subtle flair.

♪ ♪ ♪ Columbia is so much a portrait of the state as a whole: the bustle of the Piedmont, the leisure of the Grand Strand, the charm of the Lowcountry, the prosperity of the Pee Dee, the magnificence of the Midlands, the expansion of the Savannah River Valley.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Columbia ties it all together as if by magic.

Columbia is South Carolina's business barometer: the industrial index, the convention center, the transportation terminal, the agricultural access, the cultural core.

It is the focus of education, government, and the headquarters for health and law enforcement.

♪ (male narrator) And Columbia is the leader in fashion.

♪ And live nightly entertainment is becoming the order of the evening in many local clubs and lounges as Columbians have begun to demand places to go and things to see and do while they're going.

♪ It's the Columbia Museum of Art and an assortment of libraries which make Columbia sort of the entire state's museum that houses historical treasure, cultural jewels and the painstakingly woven tapestry of a proud state's heritage.

It's a religious mecca of all creeds, races, and persuasions.

The Columbia Music Festival Association has a program of excellent artists.

The Columbia Choral Society annually presents "The Messiah," among other things.

The Festival Orchestra's concerts have become "must" events.

♪ ♪ ♪ The Columbia Town Theatre's productions, along with players at the university and Columbia College, give theater-goers a chance to see outstanding performances of top-flight Broadway shows.

Eventually there will be a Columbia zoo, and maybe even a South Carolina historical drama outdoors at the zoo site.

♪ ♪ And all the tigers aren't in the zoo.

University of South Carolina Gamecocks meet quite a few Clemson Tigers in a football spectacular at Carolina Stadium.

Many of the more than 44,000 fans who witness these classic gridiron battles still wish the action unfolded on Big Thursday.

But only the day has really changed.

The game itself has no equal in sheer excitement and color and sometimes confusion.

♪ And it seems that more fans are becoming accustomed to the Carolina-Clemson big finish, when the whole exciting match is settled in the closing minutes.

♪ (male narrator) While nightlife has picked up, daytime activities of those seeking outlets are also on the increase.

♪ ♪ ♪ With the fabulous water playground of Lake Murray to the west a short distance, Columbians feel a kinship to water sports, like skiing and boating, and, above all else, fishing.

♪ ♪ ♪ The city also has more golf courses than any other place in the state.

It also has more good golfers and more bad golfers.

♪ ♪ ♪ And more lost golf balls per capita than any city in the Carolinas.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Swimming and sunning are interchangeable sports for most young ladies, and the young men certainly don't mind.

♪ ♪ There are spectator sports for baseball, football, basketball, track, stock car racing, polo, and tennis fans.

♪ ♪ ♪ There is also the YMCA and the health club, where a workout and a massage make many of our civic leaders feel like new men in hours.

And backyard-barbecuing Columbians consume more hamburger meat than any other city in the Palmetto State.

And the cookout industry is a flourishing one in the capital city.

(male narrator) This is the face of Columbia at play... ♪ a competitive face, hard-working, sweating... ♪ ♪ struggling, cheering, ♪ swinging... ♪ straining... ♪ figuring... ♪ ♪ admiring... ♪ and judging.

♪ And if the entertainment or activity isn't here, Columbia is only 150 miles from anywhere in South Carolina and a lot closer to most of what's happening.

It is over 300,000 people in the greater Columbia area, and the women outnumber the men by 5 percent.

There's a transient population, but those who stay outnumber the short-termers by 20 to 1.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ There are over 50,000 teenagers in the area, and most are either riding motorbikes, or they're plugged in to transistor radios.

♪ ♪ There are nearly 60,000 young children in Columbia and an equal number of cats, dogs, hamsters, and goldfish to match all the small fry.

♪ ♪ Columbia has more taxable property, spends more to educate its children, has a higher standard of living, saves over $30 million annually, receives more salaries and wages, and spends more, retail and wholesale, than any other city in the state.

♪ ♪ Columbia has an average rainfall of 41 inches a year, but there's never enough to make the grass grow when it needs it.

Columbia's mean annual temperature is 64 degrees, but it seems to get hotter in summer and colder in winter than any other place in the country.

But not a Columbian would trade for any other place on a year-round basis.

♪ ♪ ♪ Columbians spend more on groceries, buy more clothes, have more boats, drive newer cars, have more double garages, air-condition more homes, play more golf, read more books, talk on the telephone more, write more letters, pay more bills, bank more money, listen to more music, and watch more television than any other people in the state.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ The face of Columbia: basically, it's people like you, your neighbors, me, and my neighbors.

It's a lot of people you know and a lot of people who know you.

You do a little bit of everything.

Progress sometimes looks as if it were invented in Columbia by Columbians.

Columbia is the home base of anything you wish, and if you wait a few weeks, it will have the things you can't find today.

Columbia sets the styles, fads, and trends for South Carolina.

It also sets the state's pace, which is progressive and prosperous.

Columbia is the face of South Carolina, the mirror of the state, the center of things, a remarkable city.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ And here are some more faces of Columbia.

♪ The voices of Columbia were Gene Upright, Betsy Weinberg, Judy Grosboll, John Rice, Mackie Quave, and Tony Grosboll.

♪ Captioned by: CompuScripts Inc. www.compuscriptsinc.com ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪