122 Business View Magazine - October 2016
Phenix City, Alabama
Rising from the ashes
The cities of Phenix City, Alabama, and Columbus,
Georgia, sit on opposite sides of the Chattahoochee
River, which forms the southern border between the
two states. Today, these two metropolises share a com-
mon desire to grow and prosper as family-oriented,
forward-looking jurisdictions that also hope to become
the nexus of a well-visited tourist mecca. But that has
not always been the case.
In fact, for many years, the relationship between the
two towns more or less resembled that of Chicago and
Cicero, Illinois during the Roaring Twenties. While Co-
lumbus had the more legitimate industries – it was
always a center of cotton transport and textile manu-
facturing, as well as being the home of the U.S. Army’s
Fort Benning installation – Phenix City, had the Mob.
“Our industry was gambling, running booze, and pros-
