Cahaba, also spelled Cahawba, stood at the confluence of the Alabama and Cahaba rivers and served as Alabama’s first permanent state capital from 1820 to 1825 before concerns about flooding and disease led to the capital’s removal. It later revived as a Black Belt river port and cotton market, growing into a prosperous commercial town with a railroad connection and about 2,000 residents by 1860. During the Civil War, its riverfront warehouse became the Confederate prison Castle Morgan. Repeated floods, wartime disruption, and the county seat’s move to Selma hastened the town’s decline, leaving an archaeological site preserved today as Old Cahawba Archeological Park.