In January 1846, the Alabama legislature moved the state capitol from Tuscaloosa to the more centrally located city of Montgomery. The capitol building, completed in 1851, still serves as the capitol today. Montgomery holds a strategic place in state and national history as Alabama’s seat of government, the original Confederate capital, and the birthplace of the American civil rights movement.

 

 

 

 

Photos courtesy of: Alabama Department of Archives and History, Getty Image