0:01

Cahaba is a town in the center of

0:03

the state of Alabama. Today, it's

0:05

a quiet, serene place. But

0:07

in Cahaba's heyday, it had

0:10

three distinct eras. In

0:13

the early 1820s, it became the first

0:15

state capital of Alabama, very Wild West-like,

0:17

but it was a place with promise

0:19

in the middle of wilderness. In

0:21

the 1850s, it caught a second wind. It

0:23

was one of the wealthiest cities in the

0:25

state and one of the wealthiest counties in

0:27

the country. After the Civil War,

0:29

in the late 1860s, it

0:31

was a hub for the formerly enslaved, a place

0:34

where black people could finally enjoy the fruits

0:36

of their labor. But

0:38

today, Cahaba is completely

0:40

deserted, and it's been that way for a

0:42

while. Most towns go

0:45

undeveloped and they destroy what was there before.

0:47

Here are the footprints of all those buildings and

0:50

all those lives are still there. This

0:53

is Linda Derry. She's the site director

0:55

at the Old Cahaba Archaeological Park. After

0:57

almost 40 years of working there, Linda still

1:00

has a reverence for the scenery that Old

1:02

Cahaba has to offer. The

1:04

southern landscape, especially in Alabama, we have this

1:07

sort of relic. You

1:09

know, if you look

1:11

closely, you can see pieces of the

1:13

past, like runes of old tenant

1:16

farmer's shocks or, oh

1:19

my gosh, here every spring, the

1:22

roses and the daffodils that these

1:24

people brought from the East Coast

1:26

here to make their yards

1:29

beautiful, they bloom again. These

1:31

things are planted originally by people that are

1:33

long dead by every spring. We

1:36

see, it gives me chills just thinking about it.

1:39

So if you just open your eyes to it, you

1:42

can hear those dead people talking to you

1:45

through these messages embedded in

1:47

the landscape. My

1:50

name is Baudelaire and this is Atlas

1:52

Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange,

1:54

incredible and wondrous places. Today, we go

1:57

to Cahaba, Alabama, to the Old Cahaba

1:59

Archaeological Park. Park to visit

2:01

Alabama's most famous ghost town and we

2:03

hear how it was once the center

2:05

of life in Alabama until suddenly it

2:08

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3:40

Over the past hundred years, Cahaba has

3:43

become a place shrouded in myth. There's

3:46

a lot of myths about this

3:48

place that are completely wrong. Things

3:51

they read in their fourth grade textbook when

3:53

they're little that you know

3:55

you just wonder how they got there. One

3:57

of those myths is how the town got its name. starts

4:00

with the state of Alabama's first governor,

4:02

William Bibb. Here's

4:05

how it goes. Governor

4:07

Bibb came to Cahaba to give us

4:09

the place for our capital, and there

4:11

were Native Americans there, and they

4:13

were going, Cahaba, Cahaba, Cahaba, which

4:15

means water above, and they were trying to

4:17

warn him away. It's just

4:19

silly. None of that had ever happened. Native people

4:21

had lived here for like 9,000 years. It was

4:23

a good place for them to live. In

4:26

fact, Cahaba doesn't mean water above. Cahaba

4:29

means cane brick, a tall grass that's a

4:31

relative of bamboo. The town of

4:33

Cahaba was actually named after the Cahaba River,

4:35

and at the time, the river was lined

4:37

with cane brick. Today, there isn't

4:40

any cane brick in Cahaba. There's

4:42

just ruins of its heyday. You'll

4:44

see columns from the

4:47

mansion's gone, but the column in the basement is

4:49

still there. You'll see ruins

4:51

of old warehouses, and

4:53

the cemeteries are incredible because you can read

4:56

the inscriptions and learn what they wanted you to know

4:58

about their loved ones. The

5:01

reason Cahaba was chosen as the capital was

5:03

because Governor Bibb had been given a free

5:05

square mile of land there before any town

5:07

infrastructure was built. He figured

5:09

if it were the capital, then the plots of

5:11

land he would sell from that square mile would

5:14

increase drastically in value, and it worked.

5:16

The money from the sale of those plots

5:18

of land then became the foundation for the

5:20

state of Alabama's treasury. At

5:22

that time, folks were moving west to this

5:24

brand new state called Alabama, and what better

5:26

place to live than its capital? Like

5:29

any big city, there was a lot of action. If

5:32

you came in 1820, there

5:34

would be a brick state house, then there'd

5:37

be a bunch of log cabins. It was very

5:39

much, I'd say, more like gun smoke, western,

5:42

than like Gone with the Wind. In

5:44

fact, the editors said, women

5:46

and children should stay home at night because of

5:48

all the gunplay in the streets. It

5:50

was really rough and tumble. But

5:52

Cahaba wouldn't be the capital for very long,

5:55

and this leads to another myth. This

5:57

one goes that the state capital was only moved because

5:59

of a massive flood that supposedly

6:01

hit Caba in 1825. Well when

6:03

you start doing the research

6:07

1825 was a drought year. There

6:10

was no flood. Why the myths?

6:12

Like what what what purpose do

6:15

they serve rather than the truth I guess?

6:18

Well you know Christians

6:20

love a big flood story don't they? So

6:22

it's something they can relate

6:26

to. I should mention that

6:28

Alabama has moved its capital four times

6:30

before it landed on its current capital

6:32

Montgomery but the real story behind this

6:34

first move was all about politics.

6:37

See people in North Alabama resented that Governor

6:39

Bibb made Caba the capital and when Bibb

6:41

died there was no one else around to

6:43

stick up for Caba. So the people took

6:45

a vote in 1825 and it was settled.

6:49

The capital would move. They

6:51

didn't feel that being a capital was

6:53

enough incentive to make a town grow.

6:55

So it had only been from 1819 to 1825. It's

6:59

not very much time and

7:01

in the beginning the steamboats weren't

7:04

even running up the river. So that's

7:07

the reason they gave for moving but

7:09

ha ha the town

7:12

went on and became one of the

7:14

wealthiest towns. During

7:16

the mid-1800s an area of Central

7:18

Alabama was one of the wealthiest and

7:21

most politically powerful regions in the United

7:23

States. This region was called the Black

7:25

Belt named for the fertile black soil

7:27

that ran through it and Caba

7:29

happened to be situated right smack in

7:31

the middle of the Black Belt. Caba

7:33

was now in its second phase. No

7:35

more log cabins or old western-style living.

7:37

At this point in 1860

7:40

Caba had the fourth highest per capita wealth

7:42

in the entire country. Right

7:45

before the Civil War. So

7:47

that was its peak. So

7:50

there were probably over

7:52

3,000 people living here at that time. And 64% of

7:54

that population was African-American. for

8:00

huge mansions and

8:02

finds stores and churches and schools

8:05

and um so

8:08

it would have been quite something but

8:11

it also would depend who you were like

8:13

vine street was the main downtown street so

8:15

if you were a white planner you would

8:17

know that quite well but the

8:20

next street over was um were

8:22

all the brackenest

8:24

shops and the slave exchange and

8:26

so if you were enslaved person that was the

8:28

center of your world but

8:31

um so you would get a very different

8:33

view of it but cahaba was always

8:35

majority black but

8:37

then in 1861 the civil war

8:39

began the civil

8:42

war was a turning point in cahaba's history for

8:44

a few reasons for the first reason

8:46

we have to go back to a few years

8:48

before the war started in 1858 during

8:51

cahaba's days of bringing in money from the sale

8:53

of cotton the town was building

8:55

a railroad makes sense right cotton is

8:57

king so let's get a railroad stop

8:59

well during the war the confederacy had

9:02

to focus on wartime production and nearby

9:04

selma was making cannons and other weapons

9:06

that were more of an immediate need

9:09

so the confederate army tore up the

9:11

entire railroad that was almost done in

9:13

cahaba to finish a railroad line in

9:15

and out of selma a

9:17

railroad warehouse in cahaba had just finished

9:19

and it was turned into a prison

9:21

for captured union soldiers another

9:26

way the war changed cahaba was in the

9:28

lives lost many

9:30

of the white men didn't come back from the

9:32

war the majority of them died defending

9:35

richman in virginia

9:37

by the time the war was over old

9:39

cahaba looked completely different this town that used

9:41

to be bustling from all this money from

9:43

the sale of cotton and enslaved people had

9:46

lost its free workforce cahaba

9:48

was left as a remnant of the old south

9:50

of the old plantation south the

9:53

delma had built an industry

9:55

during the war to build armament

9:58

for the confederates So

10:00

they had industry and they had

10:03

immigrants. And so they were new

10:05

South, probably old South. After

10:12

the Civil War came Reconstruction, an

10:14

era of Black self-determination as well

10:17

as political and economic success. With

10:21

Reconstruction came a new era for

10:23

Cahaba, its third phase, one

10:26

where the Black residents would be able to

10:28

enjoy the town's success. It was their community

10:30

and they built their own schools and their

10:32

own churches. Cahaba was now a

10:34

haven for the newly free Black folks. From

10:37

Selma, the new strip is called

10:39

Cahaba the NECA of the Radical

10:41

Republican Party. And that wasn't met

10:43

as a compliment. Because

10:45

all these newly emancipated people voted

10:47

Republican because Swinkin was Republican.

10:52

Self-determination led to some pretty impressive stories from the

10:54

Black population of Cahaba. Stories like

10:56

Sarah Duncan. Sarah Duncan was an

10:58

activist born in post-war Cahaba that would tour

11:00

the South and speak about not just the

11:02

rights of Black people, but the rights of

11:04

women. She's what they call

11:06

the race woman. She's the uplifting race. She

11:10

said women were the last creation of God

11:12

and therefore the most perfect. Another

11:15

story is that of Jeremiah Harrelson, a

11:18

self-educated formerly enslaved man from Georgia that

11:20

went on to represent Cahaba and the

11:22

Alabama House of Representatives, the Alabama Senate

11:25

and the U.S. House of Representatives. He

11:28

was also considered one of the great orators of his

11:30

time. Frederick Douglass heard Harrelson

11:32

speak in 1872 and called him

11:35

one of the most amusing, ready,

11:37

witted and gifted debaters. And

11:39

there was also the story of Ezekiel Arthur. Born

11:42

into slavery in Arkansas, after emancipation,

11:44

Ezekiel traveled state to state to find

11:46

his sister and mother. After

11:49

reuniting with them, he moved to Cahaba. There

11:52

he became a successful farmer and landowner,

11:54

growing corn, cotton and sugar cane that

11:56

he sold within Cahaba and to cafes

11:59

in New York. by towns. But

12:01

as Reconstruction came to an end, so did

12:03

Cahaba's time as a black haven. With no

12:05

federal troops protecting the rights of black people

12:08

in the South, racist groups were

12:10

free to terrorize places like Cahaba. So

12:15

it then became, yeah, dangerous

12:17

for people that were outspoken. Most of

12:19

the tenant farmers disappeared. You know, they

12:22

went to Detroit or Chicago or someplace.

12:25

At that point, Cahaba's desertion began. First,

12:27

it was the people, then

12:29

it was the buildings. You see, during

12:32

the Civil War, nearby Selma was damaged

12:34

pretty badly. And the people

12:36

of Selma decided it'd be cheaper to

12:38

salvage Cahaba's building materials rather than bringing

12:41

in brand new materials. And

12:43

there's articles in Selma's paper saying, here

12:46

comes another frame of the house from Cahaba.

12:48

If they continue, Cahaba will be out of business

12:51

shortly. And then a decade or more later, they

12:53

come and take down the brooks and reuse the

12:55

brooks. By the

12:57

1930s, not much was left of Cahaba.

12:59

The families had been long gone. And

13:01

now the only folks living there were

13:04

fishermen and hunters. Almost

13:09

50 years later, Cahaba got one more chance

13:11

at a new life. The state

13:13

of Alabama decided to invest money to

13:15

turn its first capital into a historic

13:17

park. Almost every

13:20

family from Cahaba's early days was gone. Even

13:22

the fishermen and hunters had barely stuck around.

13:24

But there was still a descendant from Cahaba's

13:26

days as a black haven. There

13:29

was a woman who married the child of Ezekiel

13:31

Arthur who was enslaved. So

13:33

he was just one generation away

13:35

from enslavement. And she lived here

13:37

until she passed away about And

13:41

that kind of highlights why a place like Cahaba

13:43

is so special. The history is so far away,

13:45

but at the same time, so

13:47

close. Linda tells me roughly 25,000

13:49

people each year come to

13:52

old Cahaba archaeological park to see

13:54

and feel the history firsthand. Most

13:57

towns go undeveloped and they destroy what was there

13:59

before. Here, the footprints of

14:02

all those buildings and all those

14:04

lives are still there. So

14:06

I think to understand

14:08

who we are in the South now, we have

14:10

to see where we came from. And

14:13

all the parts are here. And

14:15

if they were excavated and studied, we

14:17

could really see how it all goes together,

14:21

because all of our histories are tied together. It's

14:23

like there's so many secrets

14:25

left untold. Old

14:31

Cahaba Archaeological Park is open Thursday through Monday,

14:34

10 a.m. to 5 p.m. There's

14:36

options to bike around Cahaba or take a

14:38

canoe down the Cahaba River. This

14:45

podcast is a co-production of Atlas Obscura

14:47

and Stitcher Studios. Our

14:50

production team includes Johanna Mayer

14:52

Dylan Therese Doug Baldinger Chris

14:54

Naka Camille Stanley Manolo Morales

14:57

Gabby Gladney Our technical director

14:59

is Casey Holford. This episode

15:02

was mixed by Luz Fleming.

15:05

Our theme and end credit music is by Sam Tindall. If

15:07

you want to learn more, be sure to

15:09

visit atlasobscura.com. There's a link in our episode

15:12

description. And my name is Bo

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