HISTORY

See where history was made.

Early years

Dallas County came into existence in 1818, while the city of Selma was established two years later in 1820 by a group headed by later U.S. Vice President William Rufus King. While the county was named for Alexander J. Dallas, a Scottish immigrant lawyer, the city drew its name from Ossian’s poems. The name Selma which means “high seat” or “throne” came from the poem The Songs of Selma, one of William R. King’s personal favorites.

Dallas County had just barely come into its infancy when it was selected to be the location of Alabama’s first permanent state capital (now a ghost town and popular tourist destination), Cahawba.

This early settlement and development now means that Selma is the second-oldest surviving city in the State of Alabama, and numbers among its many historic districts an abundance of structures that date to the 1800’s. Thousands of tourists venture to Selma and Dallas County each year, many of whom are tracing their ancestors.

Development in the City of Selma was predicated on its excellent rail and waterway transportation arteries. At one time, as many as 49 different railroads operated into and out of the city. The city’s prime location high atop the Alabama River’s soapstone bluffs made Selma a natural hub for steamboat traffic throughout central and south Alabama. These routes ensured Selma’s place as a major transportation center for the region’s booming agricultural economy.

With this economic boom in full swing, Selma also becomes a commercial and professional center for an entire area of the state. This also ensured the city’s place as a nucleus for political power, and at one time, both of Alabama’s U.S. Senators hailed from Selma. While the county and region were dealt a serious political blow in 1825 when the capital moved from Cahawba to Tuscaloosa, power was maintained at the state and national level for decades to come.

civil war

The onset of war saw Selma’s sprawling industrial complex converted to the production of wartime materials and was second only to the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia in the production of munitions, canons, and armaments for the Confederate war effort.

The city was an easy choice for this role as it boasted not only the production facilities ripe for conversion, but also a central location and an extensive transportation infrastructure. By 1863, the majority of Confederate war materiel was produced in Selma, employing over 10,000. In fact, The Selma Ordinance and Naval Foundry was one of only two locations (the other being Tredegar in Richmond) that produced the technologically superior Brooke rifle, a massive naval and coast defense cannon. Additionally, the Selma works contributed to the production of at least five of the Confederacy’s Ironclads, including the CSS Tennessee.

Selma’s importance as a manufacturing and transportation center made it a prime objective for Union strategists, but the city’s location deep in the heart of the Confederacy made it a particularly difficult target on which to advance and several failed attempts were made between 1863-1865. Major General William Tecumseh Sherman, himself, led an attack on Selma from the west that was turned back to the Mississippi River near Meridian, just 107 miles shy of his intended target.