Downtown hay-bale maze. Photograph by RAM arts.
Explore Columbia · The Yards · parks · festivals · museum
Where Columbia shows up.
Ball games, church suppers, festival nights, river mornings — and the occasional hay-bale maze downtown.
The Yards The Yards
Six fields. One league. Everybody plays.
Opened in 2023 and funded by Columbia's tourism tax, The Yards brings six fields, covered seating on every one, batting cages, and a food-truck commons to R.A. Johnson Drive. At the gate stands It's Columbia — a bronze by Mississippi artist Ben Watts honoring the day two historically separate youth leagues became one league for every kid in town. Phase two — soccer fields and tennis courts — broke ground in December 2024.
Photograph by RAM arts.
Parks & the river Parks & the river
The Pearl is our front porch.
The Water Park puts you on the Pearl River — boat ramp, disc golf, lighted ball fields and camper sites. It's managed by Marion County, not the city, at 49 Dean Griner Drive · 601.736.7382. Downtown, the Pearl River Interpretive Plaza carves the river's whole course into the concrete underfoot.
The town grew up on this water; we still play on it. The city's own parks — Friendship Park and The Yards among them — are on the Parks & Recreation page.
The museum The museum
History lives in the train depot.
The Marion County Historical Museum & Archives fills Columbia's original 1907 railroad passenger depot — free admission, open Tuesday through Friday, and kept by the Historical Society since 1962. Arrowheads to game balls, all of it ours.
Faith & neighbors
Forty churches and a street named Church.
Faith is central to life here — more than forty congregations call Columbia home, anchored by First Baptist (organized 1883) and First United Methodist (serving for over 130 years). And community pride runs right down to the flower beds: the Columbia Garden Club has been crowning a Yard of the Month for years.
When the worst comes — like the 2014 tornado — this town answers with Columbia Strong, the relief effort that still serves the region. As Mayor McKenzie put it after the February 2025 storm: "Everything that's been damaged can be rebuilt."
On the calendar
A year in Columbia
Freedom Festival — Main & Second Streets: live music on the courthouse stage, 60+ vendors, fireworks after dark.
Columbia Food & Music Festival — September. The fourth annual ran September 13, 2025: twelve food trucks, sixteen acts, three stages.
A Columbia Christmas at City Park — in December 2025 the city's holiday celebration moved to Friendship Park for its inaugural run, December 1–25: a Ferris wheel, a merry-go-round, and two large trees.
Downtown Cookie Crawl — storefront to storefront, cookie to cookie.
Fall surprises — like the year a hay-bale maze took over a downtown lot. This town does not sit still.
Game nights at The Yards — spring through fall, tournament weekends bring teams from across the South.
Around town
Thinking about staying? Thinking about staying?
Visiting is one thing. Belonging is another.
That park you spent the afternoon in? The chamber donated the land for it. The Marion County Development Partnership has been quietly building this town for over a century — and if a weekend here has you thinking about a storefront, a job, or a move, that's where the conversation starts.
See it on foot
Walk it. Or ride it.
The best way to see Columbia is to cover a bit of it yourself. Every route below was routed on the real street network and measured — and every one has a Google Maps link you can tap and start.
The two long ones
The Loop — 9.6 miles. A circuit of the whole town from the Pearl River Plaza, about 50 minutes on a bike. Open in Google Maps · 🔴 ride it rather than walk it — about a third runs on highway frontage with no sidewalk.
The Errand Walk — 3.3 miles. North Columbia Baptist to Walmart through downtown, four named streets, about 65 minutes. Passes a grocery, pharmacies, banks, City Hall and the park — most of a week's errands on one walkable line. Open in Google Maps
Short neighborhood loops
Closed circuits that bring you back where you started:
0.95 mi from Courthouse — open in Google Maps
1.07 mi from City Hall — open in Google Maps
2.19 mi from North Columbia Baptist — open in Google Maps
3.07 mi from North Columbia Baptist — open in Google Maps
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