Lowndesboro developed from a small community of early settlers into a thriving township in the 1830’s. Settlers maintained plantation interests in the lowlands along the Alabama River while building cottage and antebellum homes in the Greek architectural style on the ridge of McGill’s Hill. The Alabama River ports of Newport Landing and Loch Ranza served the town, where planters stored cotton in warehouses and boats brought choice merchandise upriver from Mobile. Visitors from other communities arrived by stagecoach and carriage, stayed overnight in local hotels, and shopped for select wares. The community included the Lowndesboro Boys Academy behind the C.M.E. Church, the Lowndesboro Female Institute on the site of Lowndes Academy, and its own horse racing track. In 1837, a traveler from Virginia wrote that in northern Lowndes County there could be found “a refined and polished Society.” The business district once included livery stables, six doctors, a dentist, grocery stores, two taverns, general stores, a Masonic Hall, and a Post Office in wooden structures along the western side of Broad Street. A great fire in 1927 destroyed the business district, and the only business building that remains is the Old Indian Trading Post, or Stone-Dryer Store, at the corner of Water Street and Broad Street. Although the stores were never rebuilt, local churches remain active, with four participating churches sharing services and using a new version of the old-time circuit pastors. The C.M.E. Church is now a public facility that no longer holds regular services and houses the cupola from the first State House in Cahaba, Alabama, while the town maintains the water infrastructure and Ruby S. Moore Park.