Old Capitol Building Ruins

Coker, Alabama

Weather: low 48 degrees, high 74 degrees, mostly cloudy

Today was a rarity for us. We didn't leave the RV until 1600 hours except for me to take a walk this morning. As we said last week, the hard work is done on Terri's house, so now it's just a matter of maintaining everything. Thomas was at basketball practice, so we went by the school and picked him up before going out to the house. It was nice to be able to spend some time at our place.

Yesterday when I was in Tuscaloosa, I took some pictures of the site of the old capitol building. As I said in previous posts, Tuscaloosa was the state capital for a few years. Below is some information on that time.

Cahaba was the first state capital of Alabama. Tuscaloosa was incorporated in 1819, and became the state capital in 1826, which it remained until 1846. A building was erected to serve as the seat of government shortly after Tuscaloosa was named as the capital. In 1946, the seat of state government was moved to Montgomery, where it remains today. The former capitol building was given to the University of Alabama. The university signed a 99 year lease with a women's college in the 1850s. The building served that purpose until the 1920s, when it was destroyed in a fire. Today, the site is owned by the city, and community events take place there as well as many weddings.

Below are a few pictures of the ruins from the old capitol building.

The wall still standing is rounded, and has some ornate workings across it.

Note the columns in front of the building.

There were a lot of stone carvings in the building. Each stone mason had a unique mark that he used to identify his work, and supervision was able to track their production and quality by the marks.

I don't know if anyone noticed, but I used different spellings for "capitol" and "capital". From what I have been able to learn, and I hope the information is correct, "capitol" refers to a building, while "capital" refers to a place, such as a city. So, the Capitol Building of the US is in Washington, DC, the capital of the United States. I hope this makes sense.

More later, be safe.

Today's Town - Tuscaloosa, Alabama: America’s One And Only

Not all who wander are lost.