The story
Cahawba — now Old Cahawba Archaeological Park — was Alabama's first permanent state capital, laid out from scratch in 1819 on a grand grid where the Cahaba River meets the Alabama. It's the state's most famous ghost town largely because of how completely it disappeared.
The site flooded, which is why the capital lasted only until 1826 before moving to Tuscaloosa. Cahawba reinvented itself as a cotton port and by the 1850s was wealthy again, with columned mansions and artesian wells. The Civil War undid it: the rails were torn up for scrap, a cotton warehouse became Castle Morgan prison, holding as many as 3,000 Union prisoners, and a major flood in 1865 finished the argument. The county seat left in 1866, and by 1900 the town had dissolved into farmland.
What makes Cahawba worth the drive is the walking itself — you follow named streets past chimneys, cemetery gates, and the columns of burned mansions, reading a city that is no longer there.
What remains today
The street grid, brick columns and chimneys, three cemeteries, artesian wells, and active archaeological sites, all interpreted with signage as a state archaeological park.
From the archives
Cahawba turns up on 4,786 digitized newspaper pages from Alabama — read them free in the Library of Congress's Chronicling America collection.
Source: Library of Congress digital collections.
Questions from the field
- Why did Alabama abandon its first capital?
- Flooding — the capital moved to Tuscaloosa in 1826 after repeated inundations. Cahawba rebounded as a cotton port before the Civil War and an 1865 flood finished it.
- Is anything standing at Old Cahawba?
- Columns, chimneys, cemeteries, wells, and the street grid — it's an archaeological park you read as much as see, with excellent interpretation.
From the field
The most valuable part of this record is the part only visitors can write.
Stamp your passport
Check in at Cahawba — GPS-verified visits earn an inked stamp.
File a field report
Road conditions, what's still standing, what's gone — your report joins the record.
Add photographs
Credited, dated, and preserved as part of Cahawba's permanent record.
No field reports yet — sign in to file the first.
Primary sources for this record
- — Alabama Historical Commission — Old Cahawba
- — Dallas County records / state capital acts (1819–1826)
- — Castle Morgan (Cahaba Prison) records