ABOUT THIS BOOK

The story of the people of the Alabama River system

Four streams make up the Alabama River system, the Coosa, Tallapoosa, Cahaba, and Alabama. Together they flow for more than 900 miles, through some of the most historic regions of the state. This book looks at the way these streams have shaped the lives of the people who lived along them, and how, in turn, people have used the rivers to their own ends.

This is the story of the people of the Alabama River system: the Indians, traders, steamboatmen, passengers, slaves, loggers, "deadheaders", divers, river rats, fishermen, industrial giants, factory workers, business boosters, environmentalists, and those who simply love the rivers because of something that seems to have been a part of them from the first time they saw the water flowing. This is a book for and about these people. They, and the rivers, are the main characters in the story.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Harvey H. Jackson III is the Professor of History at Jacksonville State University in Alabama. He is the author of a number of works on Alabama and Georgia history.

REVIEWS

“From introduction to epilogue, Jackson weaves a fascinating story from an amazing variety of sources: primary, secondary, oral histories, and personal observations. The book is entertaining, informative, poignant, and finally, to me, profoundly sad. The fact that the Coosa, Tallapoosa, and Alabama now are ‘elongated lakes’ with little if any of a once-abundant biota should be a constant reminder to us all of the price we have paid for ‘civilization.’ Rivers that had existed for some 15,000 years have been harnessed and befouled in less than one century. Jackson's book chronicles this process for the Alabama River system.”
—Douglas E. Jones, Director, Alabama Museum of Natural History
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PREFACE

Introduction: “Once There Were Rivers”

1.
The Alabama Invaded

2.
Englishmen, Indians, and Americans

3.
The War for the Alabama

4.
Settling the Alabama

5.
The Age of the Alabama: Life along the River

6.
The Age of the Alabama: Life on the River

7.
The Orline St. John

8.
Alabama's Last Frontier: The Coosa and the Tallapoosa

9.
The Alabama in Transition

10.
The Rivers at War

11.
The War Comes to an End; the Coosa Comes of Age

12.
End of the Golden Age

13.
Putting “Loafing Streams” to Work

14.
Hard Times, Better Times

15.
Reviving the Rivers

16.
Fencing the River with Smokestacks

Epilogue: “Pissing in the Rain Barrel”

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY

INDEX