Fort Payne's Old Fort - A Reminder of the Trail of Tears

While many have heard of Fort Payne, Alabama - thanks largely to the success of the famous country music group Alabama and the growing popularity of nearby Little River Canyon National Preserve - far fewer are aware of how the city got its name.

There once really was a fort named Fort Payne. Built in 1838 at the site of the present city of the same name, it consisted of a rough log house or cabin surrounded by a log stockade. The U.S. Army was then engaged in forcing the Cherokee people west at bayonet point along the long and tragic Trail of Tears to new land in what is now Oklahoma. As the Alabama militia moved to support this operation, Captain James Rogers and 22 state militiamen built Fort Payne.

The fort was occupied only from April until October of 1838, but unlike most of the stockades thrown up at points where the Cherokee were concentrated for movement west, some traces of it can still be seen. A stone chimney and a few other stone ruins mark the site of the fort, which also lives on in the name of the modern city of Fort Payne.

To learn more of the story of the original Fort Payne, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/fortpayne3.

Noccalula Falls - Gadsden, Alabama

One of the most stunning sights in Alabama is formed by the water of Black Creek as it thunders over Noccalula Falls atop Lookout Mountain in Gadsden.

The stunning natural feature takes its name from the Legend of Noccalula, a folk tale about a Cherokee princess who is said to still appear in ghostly form in the mists that rise from the bottom of the falls. As the story goes, Noccalula was the daughter of a powerful Cherokee chief, but had fallen in love with a handsome but poor warrior in her own village. Her father, however, held hopes that his daughter would marry the chief of a rival tribe, thereby assuring the expansion of his own influence and power.

To achieve this goal, he expelled Noccalula's true love from the village and ordered his daughter to marry the rival chieftan. Instead, as the wedding ceremony was about to begin, she leaped from the high bluff at the waterfall, meeting her death on the rocks below. Her grief-stricken father realized his error and decreed that the waterfall would forever bear the name of his daughter. It was said that Native Americans still living in the area when the first settlers arrived told of having seen the ghost of the young princess in the mists of the falls.

There is no way of knowing how true the legend may be, but it is a colorful part of Alabama folklore and history and Noccalula Falls is one of the most beautiful and easy to access large waterfalls in the state.

To learn more, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/noccalula.