Alabama Central Female College

You are standing on ground that was once the heart of Alabama. This was the site of the state capitol from eighteen twenty-six until eighteen forty-six, when government moved south to Montgomery. Rather than let the grand building stand empty, the state handed it to the University of Alabama, which in eighteen fifty-seven leased it to a new Baptist school, the Alabama Central Female College.

A brick dormitory rose beside it, and for decades young women studied here in the old halls of power. The college trained generations until disaster struck. In nineteen twenty-three, fire swept through and destroyed the historic building completely.

In the nineteen thirties the rubble was cleared away and the land became a public park, which is what you see today.