Historic Linwood Cemetery

Book excerpt: Columbus, Georgia, began as a rough frontier trading town in 1828. As its focus on the sale and shipment of cotton evolved into cotton manufacturing, massive textile mills grew up along the riverbank. Today the mills are closing, but Columbus, undergoing an economic and cultural renaissance, keeps one eye on its colorful past. As the city's oldest graveyard, Linwood Cemetery bears witness to the city's rich history. Graced by over 100 monuments signed by their 19th-century carvers, Linwood is more than a cemetery: it is a virtual outdoor museum. Historic Linwood Cemetery transforms the old gravestones into flesh-and-blood stories of the people who once walked the streets of Columbus. In these pages readers will meet a broad spectrum of former residents now resting in the hallowed soil of Linwood-stone carvers, founding fathers and mothers, military heroes, steamboat designers, past managers of the city wharf, builders of the town's first roads and railroads, and the town's best ice cream maker.