Page "Wetumpka, Alabama" Paragraph 20

Though its civic pride was wounded by losing the capital to Montgomery, the planters and merchants of the region continued to flourish throughout the antebellum period.

A plan was promoted to build a lock and dam so that boats would be able to pass over the Fall Line and travel up the Coosa as far as Rome, Georgia.

One famous resident was William Lowndes Yancey, a firebrand newspaper editor and statesman who was an influential advocate of States ' rights and Southern secession.

In February 1861, representatives from seven Southern states met in nearby Montgomery to form the Confederate government, inaugurating Jefferson Davis as their president on the steps of the Alabama state capitol.

The same year saw the majority of the male population of Wetumpka going off to war.

Wetumpka was never harmed by Federal troops, who did not arrive in the area until early 1865 and were determined to push quickly on to Montgomery to punish the former Confederate capital before the war ended.

Those men who returned after the war came home to a city and a region whose economy had been completely destroyed.

In 1866, a Reconstruction government drew up a new plan of counties for the state, and Elmore County was created out of parts of Coosa, Autauga, and Montgomery counties, with Wetumpka as its county seat ( Rockford was chosen as seat of the " new " Coosa County ).

Despite this, the future of the city seemed grim.

Before the war, the population had reached more than 3, 000.

By 1879, it had declined to a scant 619.

In 1886, the worst flood in the history of the city inundated the west bank and most of downtown.

The bridge connecting the city's two halves was washed away, and more than a year passed before unfortunate Wetumpka was able to fuse itself back together.