Alabama

Alabama [1] is a state in the Southern United States of America. The state is named after the Alabama tribe, a Native American people who originally lived at the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers. Alabama is known for its scenic beauty, and has a lot to offer those who enjoy the great outdoors.

Cities Edit

• Montgomery - state capital and first capital of the Confederacy

• Auburn - home of Auburn University
• Birmingham - Alabama's largest city
• Decatur
• Dothan - largest city in Southeast Alabama
• Huntsville - home of Marshall Space Flight Center
• Mobile - Alabama's only major port and largest city near the Gulf
• Troy - home of Troy University
• Tuscaloosa - home of the University of Alabama
• Tuscumbia - Helen Keller's home

Other destinations Edit

• Gulf Shores Orange Beach - 32 miles of beautiful sugar white sands on the prettiest beaches on the Gulf of Mexico. A visit to Gulf Shores and Orange Beach offers the perfect balance of non-stop activity and lay-around-doing-nothing time. Putter around a bit on one of our championship golf courses. Cast your line for deep-sea adventure on a one of the Orange Beach fishing charters. Travel back in history with a visit to Fort Morgan, the site of the Civil War Battle of Mobile Bay. Commune with Mother Nature as you hike wildlife trails gazing at shorebirds.

• Horseshoe Bend National Military Park [2] - In the spring of 1814, General Andrew Jackson and an army of 3,300 men attacked 1,000 Upper Creek warriors on the Tallapoosa River. Over 800 Upper Creeks died defending their homeland.
• Little River Canyon National Preserve [3] - Little River is unique because it flows for most of its length atop Lookout Mountain in northeast Alabama

• Natchez Trace Parkway - The 444-mile Natchez Trace Parkway commemorates an ancient trail that connected southern portions of the Mississippi River, through Alabama, to salt licks in today's central Tennessee

• Russell Cave National Monument [4] - For more than 10,000 years, Russell Cave was home to prehistoric peoples. Russell Cave provides clues to the daily lifeways of early North American inhabitants dating from 6500 B.C. to 1650 A.D.

• Selma To Montgomery National Historic Trail - The Selma to Montgomery National Voting Rights Trail was established by Congress in 1996 to commemorate the events, people, and route of the 1965 Voting Rights March in Alabama

• Trail Of Tears National Historic Trail - Come on a journey to remember and commemorate the survival of the Cherokee people despite their forced removal from their homelands in the Southeastern United States in the 1840s

• Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site - In the 1940's Tuskegee, Alabama became home to a "military experiment" to train America's first African-American military pilots. In time the "experiment" became known as the Tuskegee Experience and the participants as the Tuskegee Airmen

• Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site - Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site is nestled on the campus of historic Tuskegee University. The site includes the George W. Carver Museum and The Oaks, home of Booker T. Washington

• Desoto Caverns -A cavern and small family attraction in Childersburg, Alabama.

• Fort Payne -Home to the Alabama Band, (recently on a new tour). Near Desoto State Park, Little River Canyon, numerous caves, rivers, hunting,and fishing.

Understand Edit

Alabama, along with the South in general, has a reputation for "Southern hospitality." The people of this state are generally genial and helpful and often go out of their way to help a stranger. While racial divisions still exist in the state, they are much more muted than popular belief and stereotypes hold. In fact, many leaps and bounds have been made within Alabama, in terms of race relations, since the 1950s and 60s.

Known primarily for its status as the original capital of the Confederacy (in Montgomery) and the birthplace of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, Alabama can be a study in contrasts.

The sport of American football is taken extremely seriously in Alabama. In addition to significant regional devotion to high-school football teams the entire state, in terms of college football, is divided into two factions: Auburn University fans and University of Alabama fans. The rivalry is so bitter, in fact, that it took an act by the Alabama State Legislature in the late 1940s to force the two colleges to play one another (the two had stopped playing each other in the first years of the 20th century over an officiating dispute).

Even then, the two schools would not agree to play at opposing sites so the State of Alabama used taxpayer funds to build Legion Field in Birmingham as a neutral site. It was only in 1989 that the Crimson Tide finally visited Auburn and 2000 that the Tigers visited Alabama. This can also be a point of concern for tourists as the rivalry is so serious that if you do not know about it then it is better to not say anything at all. Many friendships and marriages fall apart due to this rivalry and this is not an exaggeration. One could say that Auburn and Alabama fans are rivaled in their fanaticism only by those fans of European football (soccer).

Talk Edit

Many (though certainly not all) Alabamians speak with thick local accents so non-native English speakers may have difficulty understanding them. Within the two major urban areas of Huntsville and Birmingham one will find that most accents are of a General American variety while in the other two major urban areas of Mobile and Montgomery local accents are still widely prevalent. Visitors to North Alabama (Birmingham and north) will experience accents that are more "country" in nature (Senator Richard Shelby is one example) while visitors to South Alabama (south of Birmingham) will experience accents that are more closely reminiscent of those from the 1939 film Gone With the Wind and the 1994 film Forrest Gump. which takes place in Southern Alabama. Former governor Fob James is a textbook example of a southern Alabama accent.

Get in Edit

By Car Edit

Alabama is accessible by five interstate highways: I-10 crosses the state from east to west near Mobile in the south; I-20 enters Alabama from the east, traverses Birmingham, and joins I-59 as it traverses Tuscaloosa and exits the state in a southwesterly direction; I-59 enters northeastern Alabama, continues southwest through Birmingham, and exits the state toward the southwest; I-22 enters Alabama from the northwest and ends in Birmingham; I-65 enters Alabama from the north, traverses Birmingham, and ends in Mobile; I-85 enters the state in the east and ends in Montgomery.

By Bus Edit

By Train Edit

Amtrak's Crescent line offers daily service through the state: trains 19 (southbound) and 20 (northbound) run from New Orleans to Washington, D.C. and New York City. The trains stop in Alabama at Anniston, Birmingham and Tuscaloosa. Coach and sleeper service is available, with checked baggage, a restaurant car, a café and a lounge. See Amtrak [6] for more information.