Columbia Street in Covington is one of the finest small town main streets in the country.
It has pretty much everything: a variety of good restaurants, hardware stores, dozens of attorneys' offices, land surveyors, real estate offices, appraisers, art galleries, art studios, a medical spa, three banks (one on the south end and two on the north end), and the main city cemetery.
Because of its historic significance and current day activities, I have drawn a poster map that labels many of its present businesses and also lists some of its previous business locations. Here is the map:
Columbia Street Overview
Also on Columbia Street are the St. Tammany Parish Justice Center, city police headquarters, the Farmers Market, the Masonic Lodge, the St. Tammany Art Association and the historic Columbia Landing, which doubles as a concert stage and picnic area. At the top of the landing is a historical marker and an old-fashioned gazebo where musical jam sessions are often held.
Over the years its businesses have provided lumber for building homes, fashion clothing for dressing the family, shoes, hunting and fishing supplies, guitars, feed and seed and plants as well as health food items.
In one block there is a nationally-recognized glass design and fabrication firm on one end and a nationally-renowned general merchandise store that's been in business for 146 years on the other end.
Several motion pictures have been filmed on the street over the years, and a number of commercials have also been made on Columbia Street. It is a favorite location for block parties, auto shows, and parades all year long: Mardi Gras parades, the fair parade, the St. Patrick's Day parade.
The knife and archery shop is a landmark business, as is the coffee shop.
It's a street like none other, a major corridor for trade from Mississippi in the early years, and currently a favorite shopping destination for locals and visitors alike.
Tammany Trace, one of the nation's top recreational cycling trails, crosses it, as did the railroad track a century ago when passenger trains would bring hundreds of visitors to the community every summer weekend.
Columbia Street has long been one of Covington's most important thoroughfares, made possible by the business owners who located there and by the customers who shop there.
