Cahawba, once the state capital of Alabama (1819-1826) and a thriving antebellum river town, became a ghost town by the early 1900s. After Alabama became a state in 1819, Cahawba was developed where the Cahaba and Alabama rivers meet. The city fathers modeled Cahawba after Philadelphia, and soon the city on the rivers became a hub of political and social life. With many stores, several hotels, two ferries, a state bank, two newspapers, eight lawyers and several physicians, the town boomed before the Civil War.
The city was not built at an ideal location, however, and hardships were the name of the game. Because mosquitoes were a nuisance and the rivers often flooded, Alabama moved its state capital to Tuscaloosa in 1826. Still, the city continued to thrive with cotton plantations, steamboats, the railroad and a Confederate prison. Unfortunately, a major flood in 1865 destroyed the railroad terminal, leading to Cahawba’s decline. By 1870 only 300 residents remained, by 1900 Cahawba was abandoned, and by 1930 almost no structures survived.
Today, nature has reclaimed most of Cahawba. All that remains are picturesque ruins and a resident ghost. A large, white floating ball is sometimes seen by visitors, now called Peques’s Ghost after a soldier who was mortally wounded near there. For the more scientifically minded, it likely is a phenomenon known as Will-o’-the-Wisp, methane bubbles that rise over swamps.
