The story
Cahaba was the first capital of Alabama from 1820 to 1826, a thriving antebellum city of 3,000, and later a hellish Civil War prison camp where Union soldiers were held in conditions that killed hundreds. Today the Cahaba National Wildlife Refuge preserves the site's ruins — brick columns rising from overgrown lots, the outline of streets reclaimed by the Alabama River delta and the foundations of a capitol that was abandoned after just six years. Visitors exploring the ruins at dusk report an eerie stillness and, near the former prison stockade site, unexplained lights.