Capital

Cahaba had its beginnings as an undeveloped town site at the confluence of the Alabama and Cahaba rivers. At the old territorial capital of St. Stephens, a commission was formed on February 13, 1818, to select the site for Alabama's state capital. Cahaba was the site chosen and was approved on November 21, 1818.^[3] Due to the future capital site being undeveloped, Alabama's constitutional convention took temporary accommodations in Huntsville until a statehouse could be built.

Governor William Wyatt Bibb reported in October 1819 that the town had been laid out and that lots would be auctioned to the highest bidders.^[3] The town was planned on a grid system, with streets running north and south named for trees and those running east and west named for famous men. The new statehouse was a two-story brick structure, measuring 43 feet (13 m) wide by 58 feet (18 m) long, located near Vine and Capitol streets. By 1820 Cahaba had become a functioning state capital.^[2]

Due to its lowland location at the confluence of two large rivers, Cahaba was subject to seasonal flooding. It also had a reputation for an unhealthy atmosphere, when people thought that miasma in the air caused such diseases as malaria, yellow fever, and cholera. The numerous mosquitoes carried disease.^[6]

People who were opposed to the capital's location at Cahaba used this as an argument for moving the capital to Tuscaloosa, which was approved by the legislature in January 1826.^[3][7] That was not a long-term success, and it was moved again in 1846 to centrally located Montgomery, Alabama.

After the relocation of the capital, Cahaba was adversely affected by the loss of state government and associated business.

Antebellum

The town served as the county seat of Dallas County for several more decades.^[8] Based on revenues from the cotton trade, the town recovered from losing the capital, and reestablished itself as a social and commercial center.

Centered in the fertile "Black Belt", Cahaba became a major distribution point for cotton shipped down the Alabama River to the Gulf port of Mobile. Successful planters and merchants built two-story mansions in town that expressed their wealth. St. Luke's Episcopal Church was built in 1854, designed by the nationally known architect, Richard Upjohn.

When Cahaba was connected to a railroad line in 1859, a building boom was stimulated. In 1860 On the eve of the American Civil War, the town had 2,000 residents, according to the US Census. Some 64% were enslaved African Americans, reflecting the population of Dallas County, which was 75% black. Most were fieldworkers on cotton plantations. But in the town, free people of color dominated the poultry business.^[2]

Civil War

During the Civil War, the Confederate government seized Cahaba's railroad and appropriated the iron rails to extend a nearby railroad of more military importance. It built a stockade around a large cotton warehouse on the riverbank along Arch Street in order to use it as a prison, known as Castle Morgan. It was used for Union prisoners-of-war from 1863 to 1865.^[8]

In February 1865 a major flood inundated the town, causing much additional hardship for the roughly 3000 Union soldiers held in the prison, and for the town's residents. Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest and Union General James H. Wilson met in Cahaba at the Crocheron mansion to discuss an exchange of prisoners captured during the Battle of Selma.

Postbellum

In 1866, the state legislature moved the county seat to nearby Selma. Related businesses and population soon followed. Within ten years, many of the houses and churches in Cahaba were dismantled and moved away. St. Luke's Episcopal Church, for example, was moved in 1878 to Martin's Station.^[2]

Jeremiah Haralson represented Cahawba and Dallas County when elected to the State House, the State Senate and the United States Congress. He was the only African American in Alabama elected to all three legislative bodies during Reconstruction.^[2]

Together with the minority of whites, most freedmen rapidly left the declining town. By 1870, the overall population was 431, and the number of blacks was 302. During the Reconstruction era, freedmen organizing in the Republican Party and trying to keep their "moderate political gains" met regularly at the vacant county courthouse.^[2] Freedmen and their families gradually developed vacant town blocks into fields and garden plots. But they soon moved away.

Prior to the turn of the 20th century, a freedman purchased most of the old town site for $500. He had the abandoned buildings demolished for their building materials and shipped the material by steamboat to Mobile and Selma for use in growing communities.^[3] By 1903, most of Cahawba's buildings were gone; only a handful of structures survived past 1930.^[3][9]

Modern

Although the area is no longer inhabited, the Alabama Historical Commission maintains the site as Old Cahawba Archeological Park. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.^[10] Visitors to this park can see many of the abandoned streets, cemeteries, and ruins of this former state capital and county seat.^[9] The Cahawba Advisory Committee is a non-profit group based in Selma that serves to support the park; it also maintains a website related to the park and its history. It is conducting fundraising to support the restoration of St. Luke's Episcopal Church, which was relocated to Old Cahawba in the early 21st century.^[2]