- [Woman] Today, Alabama State Capitol is located in Montgomery, but that was not always true.

(upbeat music) At different times, the capitol was located in the south, all the way up north and in places in between, before finally settling in Montgomery.

That's a lot of different state capitals.

Why did Alabama have five state capitals?

Every state needs a capital.

A state capital has to be in a place that is easy to get to so that people from all over the state can travel there and make their voices heard when laws are being made.

State capitals are important because that is where the government meets to make laws.

But Alabama started as a territory, not a state.

Before it could build a capital, it needed to become a state.

It took time for Alabama to become a state.

Way back in 1783 when America won its independence from Great Britain at the end of the Revolutionary War, a huge area of land in the Southeast became part of our new country.

Eventually half of the land became the state of Mississippi, leaving the other half to make its own way as the Alabama territory, which wasn't a state yet.

The first capital was actually the territorial capital.

It was located in the southern part of the territory where the Spanish had built Fort San Esteban, which in English is Fort St. Stephens.

Spain gave the fort to America in 1799.

And the first American flag to ever fly over Alabama was raised at the fort on the banks of the Tombigbee river.

Thanks to the river, which supported trade and transportation, man people settled there.

And in 1817, it became the territorial capital of Alabama.

Today, it is a park which you can visit.

If you're lucky, you might see an archeologist finding fish fossils from a time before St. Stephen's even existed.

But St. Stephens would not remain the capital for very long.

Eventually boats would be able to travel farther up the river and people started to move to other parts of the state.

Huntsville, all the way at the other end of Alabama, then became the new territorial capital.

It was the place with the most people and the most buildings.

That was important because if Alabama was to become a real state, not just a territory, it would need a state constitution.

Those are the laws of Alabama.

The large number of politicians needed a big building to work in.

They met in a woodworking shop in Huntsville, which is now known as Constitution Hall, to write the state constitution.

The United States Congress, and President James Monroe accepted the constitution and Alabama became a state on December 14, 1819.

Happy birthday, Alabama!

(cheering) Politicians couldn't agree on where the capital should be built.

While the constitution was being written in Huntsville, Alabama's first governor, William Wyatt Bibb, wanted to build a brand new capital.

So he started to build a town in the wilderness at Cahawba, a spot where the Cahawba and Alabama rivers meet.

These rivers would allow steamboats to travel to and from Cahawba, helping it to grow into a capital city.

But as Alabama continued to grow, some politicians wanted to move the capital yet again.

In 1825, they voted to move up north to Tuscaloosa, and set up the capital on the banks of the Black Warrior River.

The capital always needed to be near a river.

No matter which location Alabama tried out for its capital, it was always near a river.

In fact, Alabama's major rivers are shown on the first seal of the state.

Rivers were super important, because in the 1800s, the fastest way to travel or get a letter to another town, was on a river boat.

Luckily Alabama's rivers form a network across the state.

This made it easy for people to travel to and from the capital.

By 1846, when more and more people were living near Montgomery than near Tuscaloosa, it was decided to move the capital one last time.

Tuscaloosa lost the capital, but at least the University of Alabama remained.

Roll Tide!

Montgomery was the perfect place for the final location of the capital.

Not only was it on the Alabama River, but a new railroad connected Montgomery to Georgia.

After a crazy ride, the capital finally settled down in Montgomery, and it remains Alabama State Capitol today.

(upbeat music)