The Cahaba: A River of Riches

An unsung Alabama waterway is one of the most biologically diverse places in the nation, home to rare flora and fauna

  • By Michelle Nijhuis
  • Photographs by Beth Maynor Young
  • Smithsonian magazine, August 2009, Subscribe
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Cahaba River
The 190-mile-long Cahaba River is home to many rare species, some of which were thought to be extinct. The showy Cahaba lily (at Halfmile Shoals) thrives in clean, clear, rapidly flowing water. (Beth Maynor Young)

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Cahaba lilies

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Headwaters: A Celebration of Alabama Rivers

by Beth Maynor Young
University of Alabama Press, 2009

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(Page 3 of 4)

"Yeah," drawls LeCroix. "And when you only move six inches a year, you sure can't play hard to get."

But the Cahaba is more than a museum of rare Southeastern river species. It also serves as a laboratory for their recovery, thanks to the recent demolition of the Marvel Slab, a road crossing built in the 1960s as a shortcut across the river for coal trucks. Though a row of small culverts allowed water to flow through the structure, it acted like a dam and changed the speed of the current, destroying snail and mussel habitats and blocking fish as they tried to swim upstream to spawning grounds.

"You'd see schools of fish literally banging their snouts on the face of the dam, trying to travel upstream," says Paul Freeman, an aquatic ecologist for the Alabama chapter of the Nature Conservancy. Once a popular angling spot, the area upstream of the Marvel Slab had lost most of its fish population.

Throughout the country, small, outdated dams and other river barriers like the Marvel Slab are coming down. Many are no longer needed for their original purposes and have become safety hazards, environmental disasters or both. Their removal can jump-start river restoration and has yielded prompt and dramatic results in Maine, Florida, Arizona and elsewhere. But in Alabama, no dam had ever been removed for environmental reasons. Freeman and other supporters of the idea spent five years politicking in local communities and collecting the necessary bureaucratic approvals.

In 2004, the federal Army Corps of Engineers—the agency with authority over the Marvel Slab—and a host of other private and public agencies finally got the go-ahead. Biologists in wet suits and waders, armed with nets and plastic buckets, spent three days moving more than 12,000 snails and mussels out of the way, then donned hard hats to watch the removal of the slab. Though "all the guys really wanted to blow up the dam," says Wendy Smith of the World Wildlife Fund, construction experts recommended it be picked apart with a heavy-duty jackhammer. Doing so uncorked the longest free-flowing stretch of river in Alabama.

The results were dramatic. "The fish came back within hours, and the snails came back within days," says Freeman. Each summer since, Freeman and his colleagues have snorkeled at the former slab site, counting snails and mussels. In the past two years, the crew found as many as 2,000 snails per square meter in some places, up from only a handful or none at all before the removal. They have also documented a jump in native mussels. "Life rebounds pretty quickly when you give it a chance," says Freeman.

After discussions with Freeman and other biologists, officials from the Army Corps recently agreed to change the management of the two remaining river barriers between Birmingham and the Gulf of Mexico. This past spring, the Corps began opening and closing the locks on the Alabama River on a schedule designed to allow more native migratory fish to return to the Alabama and Cahaba rivers.

That could help a fish that is one of the rarest vertebrates in North America: the Alabama sturgeon, which resembles a small shark with whiskers and was once found in rivers throughout the area. In the spring of 2007, biologists were thrilled to find a lone sturgeon on the Alabama, the first seen in nearly seven years. They hoped it was a female, which they would be able to breed using stored sturgeon sperm, but it turned out to be a male. The biologists implanted a tag in it and released it back into the Alabama, where it lives today—one of the last of its kind.

Below the Marvel Slab site, the Cahaba continues its course southward toward the Alabama River. Its murmurs grow even quieter and its bends more generous, looping over the coastal plain. Cypress trees, their fluted buttresses punctuated with knobby "knees," line its banks, and the air fairly sags with moisture. Here, old river oxbows become steaming swamps, hung with Spanish moss and home to carnivorous plants and the occasional alligator.


Randy Haddock stands on a muddy riverbank in central Alabama, looking over his favorite place on earth. Haddock, a slight, spectacled biologist with a trim beard, smiles as he hoists a canoe over his head, carries it to the water and launches it almost soundlessly into a calm stretch of the Cahaba River.

Between brilliant-green margins of broad-leaved trees, the Cahaba flows from its headwaters near Springville through the suburbs of Birmingham and into the heart of the state. The river slips southward with barely a murmur, unnoticed by many who live nearby. But Haddock, who has plied it for 20 years, knows the Cahaba as one of the grandest places in North America.

Biological splendor is usually associated with faraway places and fabulous creatures, rain forest river basins or African elephants. The close-to-home grandeur of the Cahaba is more subtle, counted not in jaguars or monkeys but in snails and mussels. To those willing to look closely, though, the river is as fascinating as any jungle.

The Cahaba boasts the longest free-flowing stretch of river in Alabama—140 miles—and one of the longest in the Southeast. Biologists have found that it shelters more fish species per mile than any other river in the country. Its floral attractions range from a spectacularly showy lily to a low, unassuming prairie clover, one of several local plant species that, until recently, were entirely unknown to science.

"I keep seeing things I've never seen before, so I feel compelled to keep learning," says Haddock, as he dips his paddle in the water and sets off downstream. "The Cahaba is different every time."

This overcast spring morning, our quarry is big botanical game. The river stretches ahead of our canoes in a long, silent pool, a promising sign for our small group of lily hunters. "The bigger the pool, the bigger the shoal," Haddock says. Shoals—rocky bars that reach across the river—trap lily seeds as they tumble downstream and shelter them as they sprout.

The river bends, and Haddock hears water babbling ahead. Moments later, the lilies loom into view, their bushel-size bunches arrayed in rows, their papery, moon-faced flowers forming a frothy fence. Our group falls quiet. Some of us are seeing the lilies for the first time, some for the hundredth, but the sudden expanse of blooms silences even the veterans.

As our canoes float into the rocky shoal, the lilies seem to engulf us, the giant pale flowers reaching to our chins. Though the Cahaba lily, also known as the shoals spiderlily, once grew throughout the Southeast, it's now restricted to about 70 stands. A quarter of the stands are in the Cahaba River, and one of the densest and largest is found here. Their display is as fleeting as it is rare. The lilies begin to bloom on the Cahaba in May, with each flower opening in the evening and lasting but a single day. The entire spectacle is over by mid-June.

Botanists have praised the flower's beauty for centuries: "nothing in vegetable nature was more pleasing," wrote itinerant naturalist William Bartram, who explored the Southeast just before and during the American Revolution. But few had studied the flowers, and questions remained about their basic biology.

Haddock, trained as an ecologist, moved to Birmingham in 1988 for a medical-research job at the University of Alabama and volunteered to lead canoe tours for the Cahaba River Society in his spare time. Though no one knew exactly why the flowers opened at night, Haddock suspected a nocturnal pollinator and decided to test his hunch.

One May evening, Haddock paddled out to a shoal and settled in among the lilies. He waited through one night and into the next, until finally he saw something flitting from flower to flower. Luckily, the pollinator then flew close enough to Haddock for him to identify it as a sphinx moth—solving one of the Cahaba River's many long-standing mysteries.

Haddock is still plumbing the Cahaba's secrets. He pauses near an especially dense stand of lilies, clambers out of his canoe and picks his way over the rocks until he finds a Cahaba pebblesnail, no larger than a ball bearing.

Until a few years ago, this snail was thought to be extinct, just one more species lost to the wave of extinctions on Southeastern rivers. Plant and animal species took refuge in the region during the last ice age, when glaciers covered the north, then thrived and diversified for millennia in the region's wet, warm climate. But as rivers were dammed for hydropower and transportation over the past century, species began to blink out.

The region's lush rivers—which the eminent biologist and Alabama native E. O. Wilson calls an "aquatic treasure house"—continue to lose species. Alabama now leads the lower 48 in extinctions, due mostly to disappearances among its freshwater fauna: the Coosa River, which runs alongside the Cahaba a few dozen miles to the east, lost 34 species of snails—half its entire inventory—in the 50 years between 1914 and 1964. This is considered by many experts to be the largest recent extinction event of any kind in the United States.

The Cahaba, too, has suffered casualties. Because of water pollution and other stresses such as sediment from erosion, almost a quarter of its original complement of mussel species has disappeared, and snails and fish are thought to have experienced similar declines. But the Cahaba, only 190 miles long, has also held on to a remarkable number of its native plants and animals—including 13 species of snails found nowhere else in the world, among them the humble Cahaba pebblesnail. In 2004, a visiting Australian biologist discovered that the snail thought to be extinct was simply hiding on the underside of rocks, where no one had bothered to look.

Several years ago, a Georgia botanist named Jim Allison identified eight previously unknown flower species along the river, an almost unheard-of haul in contemporary North America. The plants grow on a rare type of magnesium-rich rocky soil. Further investigation turned up eight more species never before found in the state, including one not seen anywhere since the 1830s. The Cahaba River's allies feel certain that more biological treasures lie in the glades, oxbows and shoals—all just waiting for someone to study them.

Such discoveries—and rediscoveries—are worth celebrating, say Haddock and other biologists. Snails and mollusks may not inspire us like bald eagles or blue whales or, for that matter, the flashy Cahaba lily. But they form the bedrock of healthy ecosystems, maintaining water quality by eating algae, feeding ducks, fish, crayfish and turtles, and, through their sensitivity to pollution, serving as early indicators of environmental trouble. "For these river systems in the Southeast, they are the keystone species," says Paul Johnson, program supervisor of the Alabama Aquatic Biodiversity Center.

When local game warden Ricky LeCroix buzzes up to the shoal in his airboat to say hello, Haddock is holding a tiny endangered snail called a cylindrical lioplax—and is engaged in an earnest lecture on snail sex. Some snails are both male and female, Haddock explains. But since the lioplax has separate sexes, it must work harder to find a mate in order to reproduce.

"Yeah," drawls LeCroix. "And when you only move six inches a year, you sure can't play hard to get."

But the Cahaba is more than a museum of rare Southeastern river species. It also serves as a laboratory for their recovery, thanks to the recent demolition of the Marvel Slab, a road crossing built in the 1960s as a shortcut across the river for coal trucks. Though a row of small culverts allowed water to flow through the structure, it acted like a dam and changed the speed of the current, destroying snail and mussel habitats and blocking fish as they tried to swim upstream to spawning grounds.

"You'd see schools of fish literally banging their snouts on the face of the dam, trying to travel upstream," says Paul Freeman, an aquatic ecologist for the Alabama chapter of the Nature Conservancy. Once a popular angling spot, the area upstream of the Marvel Slab had lost most of its fish population.

Throughout the country, small, outdated dams and other river barriers like the Marvel Slab are coming down. Many are no longer needed for their original purposes and have become safety hazards, environmental disasters or both. Their removal can jump-start river restoration and has yielded prompt and dramatic results in Maine, Florida, Arizona and elsewhere. But in Alabama, no dam had ever been removed for environmental reasons. Freeman and other supporters of the idea spent five years politicking in local communities and collecting the necessary bureaucratic approvals.

In 2004, the federal Army Corps of Engineers—the agency with authority over the Marvel Slab—and a host of other private and public agencies finally got the go-ahead. Biologists in wet suits and waders, armed with nets and plastic buckets, spent three days moving more than 12,000 snails and mussels out of the way, then donned hard hats to watch the removal of the slab. Though "all the guys really wanted to blow up the dam," says Wendy Smith of the World Wildlife Fund, construction experts recommended it be picked apart with a heavy-duty jackhammer. Doing so uncorked the longest free-flowing stretch of river in Alabama.

The results were dramatic. "The fish came back within hours, and the snails came back within days," says Freeman. Each summer since, Freeman and his colleagues have snorkeled at the former slab site, counting snails and mussels. In the past two years, the crew found as many as 2,000 snails per square meter in some places, up from only a handful or none at all before the removal. They have also documented a jump in native mussels. "Life rebounds pretty quickly when you give it a chance," says Freeman.

After discussions with Freeman and other biologists, officials from the Army Corps recently agreed to change the management of the two remaining river barriers between Birmingham and the Gulf of Mexico. This past spring, the Corps began opening and closing the locks on the Alabama River on a schedule designed to allow more native migratory fish to return to the Alabama and Cahaba rivers.

That could help a fish that is one of the rarest vertebrates in North America: the Alabama sturgeon, which resembles a small shark with whiskers and was once found in rivers throughout the area. In the spring of 2007, biologists were thrilled to find a lone sturgeon on the Alabama, the first seen in nearly seven years. They hoped it was a female, which they would be able to breed using stored sturgeon sperm, but it turned out to be a male. The biologists implanted a tag in it and released it back into the Alabama, where it lives today—one of the last of its kind.

Below the Marvel Slab site, the Cahaba continues its course southward toward the Alabama River. Its murmurs grow even quieter and its bends more generous, looping over the coastal plain. Cypress trees, their fluted buttresses punctuated with knobby "knees," line its banks, and the air fairly sags with moisture. Here, old river oxbows become steaming swamps, hung with Spanish moss and home to carnivorous plants and the occasional alligator.

This tropical stretch, far from Birmingham and other cities, is even less traveled than the lily shoals, and even experienced canoeists and anglers can trip up on the unknown. On one of his first dates with his future wife, Shannon, Haddock suggested an exploration of the Oakmulgee, a Cahaba tributary. The stream turned out to be so overgrown and littered with fallen logs that the pair traveled in circles, managing to escape only after a marathon bushwhack. "I couldn't believe she was still speaking to me the next day," Haddock says.

Like the rest of the river, the lower Cahaba burgeons with diversity. Fish dart underneath canoes, and a few handfuls of river mud can contain a foot-long washboard mussel or a tiny, delicately striped fawn's foot mussel. Fish throughout the Southeast have endearingly quirky common names, and those here are no exception. "There's a frecklebelly madtom, a freckled madtom, a speckled madtom, a speckled darter and a freckled darter," Haddock singsongs. "But there's no frecklebelly darter."

The lower Cahaba also winds through history. It passes near the Edmund Pettus Bridge, which crosses the Alabama in Selma and is infamous as the site of a 1965 clash between police officers and unarmed civil rights demonstrators. The Cahaba ends at the remains of Old Cahawba, the state's first permanent capital. During the cotton boom on the surrounding prairies, Cahawbans built fine mansions—including the then-largest in the state—on broad streets named Mulberry, Pine, Oak and Chestnut. Ferries operated on both the Cahaba and Alabama rivers, and in the wet season, even steamboats made their way up to the Cahaba Valley.

But in the 1820s, the state capital moved to Tuscaloosa; after the Civil War, the county seat moved to nearby Selma, and residents followed, many dismantling and moving their elegant houses. The town site became a refuge for freed slaves and, in more modern times, an overgrown patchwork of fishing and hunting camps.

Today, Old Cahawba is a state historical site, a nature reserve and a ghostly place. The chinaberry-lined streets are dotted with ruins, filled with legends of shootouts and panther sightings, and silent but for the chatter of birds and insects. Under a high, wooded riverbank, near the red-brick columns of a former Old Cahawba mansion, the placid Cahaba meets the much larger Alabama, and flows quietly toward the sea.

Michelle Nijhuis has written about aspen trees and Walden Pond for Smithsonian.
Beth Maynor Young's photographs appear in Headwaters: A Journey on Alabama Rivers.


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Comments (23)

I live in West Blocton, Al. I'm 62 years old and have enjoyed the Cahaba River for as long as I can remember. I can remember when it was full of shad and mullet. Unfortunately the mullet are gone and there is very few, if any, shad to be seen. It used to be clear enough that you could see your feet standing waist deep in the water. Now you can't. I know of two places in the bend of the river that collect such large quantities of trash after the river rises that it makes you realize there are a lot of people who do not see it as a treasure as I do. Anything from plastic bottles to lumber to all kinds of tennis balls, footballs, soccer balls, softballs, etc., come from upstream. What a shame that we treat God,s creation this way. We need to wake up.

Posted by James Parks on June 23,2011 | 12:31 PM

I grew up in Trussville swimming in the Cahaba at 'the bend'. At that time,mid '40s, the Dads in town actually dug out a deep spot so we could swim there and right below 'the bend' was the dam. That's where the older kids, teens, did what ever teens did but we little kids couldn't go there until we grew up. An old tree with a rope tied up high in a branch provided a swing out into the middle of the river. That took a lot of courage for little kids but boy it felt great once you got your first swing and drop behind you. About age seven was when you could go swimming without Mom tagging along but you had to have a friend going with you. So many great hours spent there and this article stirred many memories.
I was wondering if the marble slab that was dismantled was the Trussville dam? Does anyone know?

Posted by David Little on November 15,2010 | 07:56 AM

To Whom This May Concern:
I wanted to comment about the Cahaba Lily, though I don't know much about them, I know that they were thought to be only in the middle or lower part of the Cahaba these days. But last year I was wading and fishing by my home in Trussville and came up on a decent amount of Cahaba Lilies they were scattered across the river periodically in groups, about a 200 yard section maybe more, they appeared to be in full bloom. Point is the Cahaba pretty much starts in Trussville just a couple of miles North of here so the Cahaba Lily does exist North of Centreville and they seemed to be thriving.

Posted by Steven Posey Jr. on August 11,2010 | 05:31 PM

Simple a great article. Last year, I kayaked from the new capital (Montgomery) to the old capital (Old Cahaba). Maybe next year, kayaking the Cahaba will be on the agenda.

Posted by Gerry Elam on October 9,2009 | 04:43 PM

What a gorgeous article! The Cahaba is glowing representative of so many of our Southeastern rivers which are rich in life and enriching all our lives! Kudos to Randy, Beth and all the people working to protect this beautiful place - and the rivers in your back yard.

Posted by Margo Farnsworth on September 27,2009 | 03:04 PM

I saw your August edition in my doctors office yesterday and as a youth I have fished the Cahaba River more than i can count. In the 1940' we called it Lily Shouls. I have a photo of the lily in full bloom . I realy enjoyed your story and would like to purchase a copy of the August 2009 edition. I thhan you for bring back memories of my child hood.

James H. Lemley

Posted by James H, Lemley on September 10,2009 | 12:31 AM

This was an excellent article. The Cahaba River is an environmental treasure that needs to be preserved and protected for future generations. My family owns property on a tributary of the "Big" Cahaba River, called the Little Cahaba River. The Little Cahaba River is in suburban Birmingham and flows a relatively short distance from Lake Purdy to the "Big" Cahaba. I remember in my youth the abundance of wildlife and the unique water lilies which once grew in the Little Cahaba. Unfortunately, the lilies and many of the animal species disappeared long ago thanks to overall pollution and the erratic water flow which is controlled by the Birmingham Water Works Board (BWWB). The Little Cahaba, like many American rivers, has become a victim of overzealous development and a disregard, even disdain, for preserving and protecting the environment. Despite publicity and a 35 page "Cahaba River/Lake Purdy Watershed Protection Policy"(www. birminghamwaterworks. com), the BWWB has completely and unequivocably failed to protect not only the Little Cahaba watershed but the drinking water of the City of Birmingham. Recently, BWWB caved in to Texas mega-builder D.R. Horton and allowed its "Cotswolds" development in the heart of the watershed. BWW is not the only guilty party in this sordid story of environmental destruction. Governments at the county (Jefferson/Shelby counties) and state (Alabama Dept. of Environmental Mgmt.)level have done little or nothing to brake developmental and environmental depredation. The sad environmental story of the Little Cahaba River is warning of what could potentially happen to the "Big" Cahaba River. Environmentalists, sportsmen/sportswomen, and citizens need to make sure the pristine parts of the Cahaba River are preserved and protected for the future. Sincerely, Scott Blair

Posted by Scott Blair on September 1,2009 | 04:20 PM

Makes me homesick! I grew-up in Southeast Alabama and learned in school that Alabama is blessed with navigatable waterways. The two streams in our area were the Choctaw-atchee and Little Choctawatchee Rivers.
I know that mullet run up the 'big' river to spawn but the old electric dam on the 'little' river probably blocked their efforts. The dam is partially gone now, it would be interesting to know if the mullet are spawning in this river now.
The other thing that I believe from my casual observation over the years is that the environment of the rivers have changed, at least partially, due to treated sewage that enters into both streams. Even though the sewage is treated the amount of proteins and species that thrive on it have changed the entire ecosystem. I would like to see solid waste removed from our streams and used to fertilize our forest, etc.
Great article! Jim

Posted by James Senn on August 25,2009 | 01:58 PM

I have lived in bibb county a major part of my life,the Cahaba river runs through the middle of it,it has some of the most breathtaking shoals and beautiful water of any stretch in all of alabama, in my opinion. I have waded, fished, boated, swam, trotlined, limb lined, picnicked,and generally enjoyed the river in all it's natural beauty, it has more species of any other waterway near. In Centreville We have a Cahaba Historical Park north of the river bridge on the east bank of the river where people can enjoy it's beauty, and it's open to the public.
It's one of Alabama's natural wonders we can all be proud of.

Larry Griffin

Posted by larry griffin on August 19,2009 | 10:13 PM

Thank you for the splendid article on the Cahaba River and Old Cahawba, site of Alabama’s first state capitol. In 2008 a group of interested citizens established the Cahaba Foundation, an non profit 501(c)3 corporation whose mission is to secure private financial support for Old Cahawba. It's top priority is to provide funds to the Alabama Historical Commission to acquire the land in the historical town site that remains in private hands. All who are interested in preserving history and nature are invited to contribute to this effort: Cahaba Foundation, 917 Tremont Street, Selma, AL 36701

Posted by Daniel J. Meador, President, Cahaba Foundation on August 17,2009 | 10:41 AM

I read with pleasure the atcile on the beautiful Cahaba lily and I'm always delighted to see Willilam Bartram get some press. Late in the Civil War a prison was opened at Cahaba to ease crowding at Andersonville. My great uncle, Joseph Tener, died there on January 15, 1865.

Joseph and three of his brothers enlisted in the 70th Ohio in October of 1861. One brother died of fever just before the battle of Shiloh and is buried in an unmarked grave. Joseph and his brother Daniel, my great-grandfather, received medical discharges in late 1862. Dynes lasted the war. Joseph re-enlisted in September 1864 and was captured in November. Joseph is also buried in an unmarked grave. Those buried in Cahaba were later reinterred at the National Cemetery in Marietta, Georgia.

My great-grandfather never really regained his health and died on August 30, 1875, 2 months shy of his 32nd birthday, leaving a widow with 2 toddlers. At least he and his brother Dynes are buried in Locust Grove Cemetery, Ohio.

I visited the site of Cahaba on a quiet, grey January 15, 2005; the outlines of the warehouse that was Cahaba Prison were barely visible. The Cahaba met the Alabama and the waters flowed on.

Posted by Gail Fishman on August 17,2009 | 10:37 AM

So glad to be able to access this article. There is not a copy to be found in Birmingham bookstores.

I am a native of Marion, a small city in Alabama's Blackbelt, about 30 miles from Selma. I grew up going to parties at Barton's Beach and always watching the level of the Cahaba. I remember floods that would cover miles of cropland and I also remember the river being so low that you could walk across it.

"Old Cahawba" was a place chosen for many school field trips. This is a fascinating city to study - Did you know that the City of "Old Cahawba" went into debt to host the Marquis de Lafayette on his tour of the United States? Did you also know that this abandoned city was once one of the wealthiest places in the US? There is a wealth of history in the Blackbelt. Marion, in Perry County, is a beautifully preserved place with a long history and many preserved antebellum homes. Selma, Demopolis, Eutaw, Lowndesboro, and others are all whorthy of a visit.

Unfortunately, this part of Alabama is now very poor. It has been referred to as "Alabama's Third World", with a plethora of social and economic problems. This area of Alabama has lost a lot of its population in recent years with the failure of farming. Because of the poverty in the region, it's history is probably more vulnerable to rot and decay than other parts of the State. Your group will help preserve the ecology and the remnants of a remarkable history.

I now live in a Birmingham suburb through which the Cahaba flows. Although I have always lived near the Cahaba, I have never seen the Cahaba Lily- one more thing to put on my list of "must-do's"

Posted by Carole Giardina on August 13,2009 | 01:03 AM

Even though I have moved to Florida, I still remember the wonderful canoe trips on the Cahaba, seeing the lilies in bloom and learing to canoe for the first time, solo. I am glad to see the river get its just recognition.

We talk about the ecologically diverse place that is Florida (due to so many different ecosystems here) but the Cahaba takes its rightful claim to similar descriptions due to this article.

I used to live in Selma, in an old house that was floated down the river from old Cahaba to Selma when the county seat was changed. Many memories come from living in Selma during the 60's but the Cahaba River was always a constant in our lives

Congratulations to all at Cahaba River Society for keeping up the good fight!!

Rebecca

Posted by Rebecca Falkenberry on August 10,2009 | 10:51 AM

Thanks for the story. We have more work to be done. I would like to get in touch with these folks that spear headed this mission. I have been trying to raise concerns on the terrapin creek which dumps into the coosa north of Gadsden and just south of Centre in Cherokee county Alabama. The same thing has happened when a private resturant owner took an existing mill and dammed up the ladder left from earlier years and caused fishing to come to a complete hault up creek from this point. I have been fishing on this creek for 20 yrs. and never have I seen such a drastic change. We catch 40 to 50 spotted bass and crappie below the mill and 0 above. Alabama fish and game biologist say nothing is wrong. I beg to differ. This is happening on the tallapoosa as well from middle of state to Georgia line.

Posted by Bryan Walker on August 7,2009 | 03:36 PM

I grew up in Bibb County in West Blocton and Centreville/Brent, AL and fished the Cahaba and the surrounding creeks and what we called the Little Cahaba or Little River which runs into the Cahaba. I "trot line" and "shoal" fished the Cahaba with my Father, Grandfather and uncles and have such wonderful memories of that river. Gotta be the best tasting cat fish in the world. I met my wife Jane (38-years ago) on a fishing trip on the Little Cahaba near Bull Dog Bend.

Thank you so much for this article and your continued support for conservation of places like this.

Posted by Billy and Jane Abston on Aug. 6. 2009

Posted by Billy Abston Sr on August 6,2009 | 02:47 AM

Our deepest thanks to Smithsonian, Beth Young and Michelle Nijhuis for telling our river's story so beautifully and well. Your article, and Beth's photos, help us build the support it will take to save this magnificent resource. I hope folks will link to our website and learn about the Cahaba's challenges - urban growth - and the solutions that are starting to make a difference for the river's future. And come on down to Alabama, get in touch with us, and go canoeing with Randy Haddock, our Mussel Man!

Posted by Beth Stewart on July 30,2009 | 03:14 PM

Enjoyed the article on the Cahaba River in Alabama. I deer hunted 3000 acres of land that surrounded the old Cahawba capitol site for 12 years, up until 2 years ago. The area is rich in artifacts, spearheads, pottery, and old home sites. Most impressive was the numerous poorly marked grave sites that dotted the high ground around the old capitol. One site that was mistakenly uncovered contained a civil war solider, in full dress. Needless to say it was immediately covered back up. Other marked sites contained whole families that the locals say died in the many floods that occurred at the confluence of the Cahaba and the Alabama Rivers. Probably explains why the Capitol was moved. The area is a gem of ecology and history. Hopefully the coal company that purchased our leased 3000 acres doesn't have any destructive plans for the beautiful Old Cahawba.

Greg Short

Posted by greg short on July 29,2009 | 07:25 PM

I really enjoyed the article. I had the pleasure to live on the banks of the Cahaba River for several years and it provided the most relaxing atmosphere. It is truly an American treasure.

Posted by Butch McKay on July 29,2009 | 10:39 AM

Thank you for such a well written and beautifully photographed article.

Posted by Rebecca Stephens-McGill on July 25,2009 | 09:45 AM

I am so thrilled to see this article. I live close the river and love the area. Perhaps people who don't live close to the river, or even in Alabama, can come to understand why one choses to return to live in this part of the country.

Posted by Nancy B. Mitchell on July 23,2009 | 07:43 PM

Pat and Readers
This is an awesome tribute to the many folks that have worked so hard to preserve this river and its treasures. The article is well written and the author fully recogizes the critical importance of saving such special places.

On a personal note, I was raised on the Little Warrior River (now called the Locust Fork) in the mining camp known as Sayre in Jefferson County. As a boy and young man, I was dazzled by these lovely lilies that bloomed on a large shoal where my Dad owned an ancient fish trap. The last time I visited my special place, the strip mining and pollution had APPARENTLY resulted in the loss of these beautiful and dainty lilies.

Pat, thanks for sharing the address on the article.

Bob Sargent
The Hummer/Bird Study Group
Clay, Alabama

Posted by Bob Sargent on July 23,2009 | 12:27 PM

Fantastic article. I know lots of folks will be tickled to see it. And people like Randy and Ricky (and a host of others) are as much assets to the river as the pebble snail or sturgeon. Let's hope they keep tearing down barriers to conservation efforts.

Posted by Katie Pezzillo on July 22,2009 | 12:57 AM

Nicely done.

Posted by Doug Darr on July 21,2009 | 02:01 PM



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