Our city goes by many names: CoMo. The District. The Athens of Missouri. Tiger Country. Quirkyville, USA. The Home of Newsy, Pictures of the Year International, the Reynolds Journalism Institute and Investigative Reporters and Editors.
The origin of “CoMo” is simple: it’s just a mashup of the city’s name, “Columbia,” and Missouri’s postal code, “MO.”
But what about the name “Columbia?” Have you ever wondered how our city got its name?
Well, you’re in luck, Tigers, because this week, your CoMo-centric columnist (who, coincidentally, hails from the _other_ District of Columbia) is here to investigate. Consider this your crash course in Toponymy 101 (In lieu of tuition dollars, I’ll gladly accept cups of coffee).
Take a seat, kids, because class is in session.
In the early 19th century, long after French explorer Robert de La Salle claimed all of the Missouri River basin in the name of France, after the Lewis and Clark Expedition passed through and after Daniel Boone & Co. created their salt lick –– for which the Booneslick Trail is named –– 40 miles north of Columbia, Smithton Co., a land company, established a village in 1818 and called it Smithton.
Smithton, less than a mile from modern-day Columbia, spanned more than 2,000 acres. However, three years later, the villagers –– all 35 of them –– needed a better source of water. They packed up and moved to what is now downtown Columbia.
The settlers named the new area between Flat Branch (the river, not the brewery) and Hinkson Creek “Columbia.”
The moniker had first appeared in 1738 in magazine articles discussing British Parliamentary debates. However, since it was technically illegal to publish the details of the debates, writers bent the rules by substituting fake names for all involved –– the British became “the Lilliputians,” the Parliamentary debates became that of the “Senate of Lilliput” and America herself became “Columbia.”
Samuel Johnson, The Gentleman’s Magazine’s top Lilliputian debates correspondent, is the journalist often credited with officially coining the term.
The debates eventually ended, America revolted and became independent, and the nickname stuck.
What began as a parody name became a poetic title for the personification of America, used in poems and works of literature about the young country. It was later adopted by prestigious institutions like New York’s King’s College, which became Columbia College and is now known as Columbia University. Later, companies like Columbia Pictures adopted the name.
As a journalism student, I’d be remiss if I neglected to mention the Columbia Broadcasting Station. The news org takes its original name from parent company Columbia Records, although it’s since changed its name to the simple “CBS Broadcasting Station.”
And of course, in 1791, a small portion of land on the Potomac River, destined to be the home of the U.S. government, questionably named football teams and Bill Nye, was given the name “the Territory of Columbia” (it became the “District” in 1801).
But the Smithton name stuck, too, in the form of CoMo’s own Smithton Middle School, and in the Smithton Ridge Apartment and Smithton Crossing Condominium complexes, also both here in CoMo. There’s even a Smithton township in Pettis County, Mo., approximately an hour away.
So there you have it, class. The origin of CoMo’s name. Was it what you (un)expected?