Montgomery, the capital of Alabama

From the Tombigbee to Goat Hill

Alabama’s capitals trace the way the state was settled. In territorial days the government sat at St. Stephens, a river town on the Tombigbee in the southwest. Huntsville, in the fast-growing Tennessee Valley in the north, then became the temporary capital, hosting the convention that wrote the state constitution in July 1819 and the first state legislature.

The first permanent capital was Cahaba, a planned town where the Cahaba River meets the Alabama, near the middle of the state. It did not last. The site flooded, and lawmakers complained it was unhealthy, so in 1826 the government moved to Tuscaloosa. Cahaba faded quickly once the capital left, and by 1900 it was a ghost town. Its ruins are now a state historic site.

Tuscaloosa held the capital for twenty years, in a capitol designed by the architect William Nichols and finished in 1829. But the state was changing. In the 1830s Creek lands in east Alabama were opened to white settlement, and the population shifted east. By the 1840s Tuscaloosa sat at the western edge of where most Alabamians lived.

Why Montgomery won

In 1846 the legislature voted to move the capital to Montgomery. The city sat near the center of the settled state and had rail connections. It also came with a site ready to build on: years before, the town promoter Andrew Dexter had set aside a hill at the head of the main street, known as Goat Hill, for a future statehouse. Montgomery offered the land and sold bonds to pay for the building.

The first capitol, designed by Stephen Decatur Button, was finished in 1847. It burned in December 1849, only about two years later. A new building rose on the same foundations under the builder Barachias Holt and was completed in 1851. That is the core of the Capitol that stands today.

The Capitol

The Alabama State Capitol is a white Greek Revival building with a tall dome, looking down Dexter Avenue from the top of Goat Hill. Wings were added over the following century. Inside, two cantilevered spiral staircases rise without visible support. They were built by Horace King, a bridge builder who had been born into slavery. Eight murals in the rotunda, painted by the Mobile artist Roderick MacKenzie between 1926 and 1930, show scenes from Alabama’s history.

Two events tie the building to national history. In February 1861 Montgomery became the first capital of the Confederacy, and Jefferson Davis took the oath as its president on the Capitol’s portico; a six-pointed star marks the spot. A little over a century later, in March 1965, the Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights ended at the same steps, months before Congress passed the Voting Rights Act.

The legislature met in the Capitol until 1985, when it moved across the street to the State House. The old building was restored and reopened in 1992, and it has been a National Historic Landmark since 1960. Governors still have their offices there.

Montgomery and Alabama’s big cities

Montgomery had about 195,000 residents in 2025, which makes it the fourth largest city in Alabama, a hair behind Birmingham. Huntsville, the home of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, has become the largest city, with about 234,000 people, and Mobile is second. Three of Alabama’s five capitals, Huntsville, Montgomery and Tuscaloosa, are major cities today; St. Stephens and Cahaba are historic sites.

Visiting

The Capitol is open to visitors; the Alabama Historical Commission, which runs it, sets the hours and tours. Montgomery’s other landmarks are within walking distance, including the Dexter Avenue church where Martin Luther King Jr. was pastor. The Alabama Tourism Department’s historic capitals tour also covers the former capitals, including the ruins at Old Cahawba.