Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Montgomery (3.)

MONTGOMERY, a city of the United States, the capital of Alabama, is built on a high bluff on the left bank of the Alabama river, 158 miles north-east of Mobile, with which it is connected by rail (180 miles) and by a steamboat service (330 miles). The State-house, rebuilt in 1851 at a cost of $75,000, occupies a commanding site on Capitol Hill. There are a city-hall, a court-house, and two theatres, a large flour-mill, a cotton-factory, two oil-mills, a fertilizer-factory, and several foundries and machine shops. The population was 16,713 in 1880; and, in consequence of the marked increase in commercial and industrial activity since that date, it is now (1883) estimated at 19,000. Founded in 1817, and named after General Richard Montgomery (1736–1775), the town of Montgomery became in 1847 the seat of the State Government instead of Tuscaloosa. From February 1861 to May 1862 it was the capital of the Southern Confederation. In 1865 it was seized by the Federal forces under General Wilson.