Columbus is a city in Columbia (mostly) and Dodge Counties in the south-central share of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The population was 5,540 at the 2020 census. All of this population resided in the Columbia County allocation of the city. Columbus is located very nearly 28 miles (45 km) northeast of Madison upon the Crawfish River. The Columbia County allocation of the city lies within the Madison Metropolitan Statistical Area even if the Dodge County ration is a portion of the Milwaukee-Waukesha-Racine CSA. Nearly all of the city is located within the town of Columbus in Columbia County, though a small portion lies within the town of Elba in Dodge County.

H. A. Whitney, a Yankee peddler from Vermont, moved to Columbus in 1845 and build up the first wood frame stock building in the community upon the house where the Whitney now stands. The building served as a assimilation store/tavern/rooming house and state office, with Whitney as the first postmaster. In 1857, the building burned the length of and was replaced by the current Whitney Hotel in 1858. This cream brick, Italianate-style hotel’s third floor ballroom was heated by six wood-burning stoves. The local newspaper reported on a ball there in 1863, “if you ever hear of a ball by Fuller, ask no questions, but go at once, and enjoy yourselves, and for one night forget the ‘fear of the draft'”.

During the 1880s, The Whitney hosted traveling health practitioners whose endowment ranged from “delivering a 40-foot long photograph album worm” to a local couple to curing piles. Near the turn of the 20th century, the ballroom was turned into an apartment, and from then on served as commercial, professional, and apartment space.

In the 1950s, a restaurant and bar occupied the first floor of the building. From the 1960s to the present, a taking office of owners occupied the building and child maintenance was deferred. In the 1950s, the building fell into disrepair and as a result of its continued decline, faced demolition in 1990. In February 1991, Heartland Properties, Inc. helped local citizens create the Columbus Downtown Development Corporation (CDDC), which served as the developer to modernize the Whitney.