Kahaba is a town in the center of the state of Alabama.

Today, it's a quiet, serene place, but in Kahaba's heyday, it had three distinct errors.

In the early 1820s it became the first state capital of

Alabama, very wild west-like, but it was a place with promise in the middle of

wilderness. In the 1850s it caught a second win. It was one of the wealthiest

cities in the state and one of the wealthiest counties in the country. After the

Civil War in the late 1860s it was a hub for the formerly enslaved a place where black people

could finally enjoy the fruits of their labor. But today, Kahaba is completely deserted

and it's been that way for a while.

Most towns go on develop and they destroy what was there before.

Here the footprints of all those buildings

and all those lives are still there.

This is Linda Derry.

She's the site director at the Old Kahaba Archaeological Park.

After almost 40 years of working there, Linda still has a reverence for the scenery that Old

Kahaba has to offer.

The southern landscape, especially in Alabama, we have a sort of relic.

You know, it's...

If you look closely, you can see pieces of the past like ruins of old, tenant

former shocks, or oh my gosh here every spring the roses and the daffodils that people brought from the East Coast

here to make their yards beautiful they bloom again. These things are planted

originally by people that are long dead by every brang.

...