The New Student's Reference Work/Selma, Ala.

Sel′ma, Ala., city and county-seat of Dallas County, on Alabama River, 50 miles from Montgomery. The city is in a cotton-growing section, and has an extensive trade in cotton, coal, lumber and iron-products. It has cotton-factories, a cotton-warehouse, cottonseed-oil mill, car-wheel shops, ironworks and railroad machine shops. Selma has public and parochial schools, Dallas Academy, Selma University (Baptist), opened in 1878, for colored pupils, private business schools, the Y. M. C. A. library and reading-rooms. During the Civil War the city had a Confederate navy-yard, arsenal, powder-works and artillery-foundries. It was captured by the Union forces on April 2, 1865. Selma has the service of four railroads, and is at the head of steamboat navigation on the Alabama. Population 13,649.