Thousands of people once lived in Cahaba, where fine homes, hotels, churches, and businesses lined the streets, but the Civil War transformed the town. Many of the men who went to war never returned, the town center was turned into a prison for Union soldiers, railroad tracks were removed for the war effort, and the enslaved laborers who had harvested cotton were emancipated. In April 1865, the rivers rose and completely flooded Cahaba for the first time, and after Cahaba lost the county seat in 1866, most residents left and followed it to nearby Selma, which had become an industrial center during the war. After the war, Selma needed building materials because many of its buildings had burned in the Battle of Selma and supplies were scarce, so houses and bricks from Cahaba were removed by boat and reused there. By 1871, Cahaba was being systematically stripped for secondhand brick and lumber, and people continued taking its bricks well into the 20th century, with Cahaba materials still used in prominent Selma buildings as late as 1937.