UA Museum’s Excavation Resumes at Alabama’s Frontier Boom Town

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Experts with The University of Alabama’s Alabama Museum of Natural History are leading an archaeological expedition on a return trip to the state’s first territorial capitol, Old St. Stephens in Washington County. They are digging up new details about the boom town and how early Alabamians lived.

Known as Museum Expedition, the camp is being held in four sessions, which began June 8 and will end July 2.

This year’s Expedition team is celebrating the program’s 25th year. For the second consecutive year, researchers are investigating the remains of Old St. Stephens, now a ghost town. During three decades, beginning in the 1790s until its decline in the 1820s, Old St. Stephens was the location of a Spanish fort, an American fort and Choctaw Indian trading post, and the territorial capitol of Alabama.

“Much of the site survives in a remarkable state of preservation,” said Randy Mecredy, education outreach coordinator for the UA Museum, who is leading the program. Last year’s dig participants assembled dozens of artifacts, including coins, smoking pipes, utensils, glassware, musket balls and more than 50 restorable ceramic vessels.

“So much remains unknown about the artifacts,” said Mecredy. “But the property owners evidently did not live the poor, deprived, back-water lives that one might expect on the frontier,” he added. “These preliminary conclusions are just the tip of what we hope to learn when the project is completed.”

The Museum began this annual field science program with professional and academic archaeologists in 1979. Originally designed exclusively for high school students, teachers, and parents, the Museum Expedition now accepts any history, science, or archaeology enthusiast who wishes to learn excavation techniques, lab procedures, and artifact identification. The program remains one of only a few in the country to provide a hands-on science dig to participants as young as age 14.

“The idea of putting students and adults into the field as residents of a tent camp has proved a big success,” said Dr. John Hall, founder of the program and retired director of UA’s Alabama Museum of Natural History. “They can immerse themselves in real research projects, directed by leading scientists, doing complex and exacting field work in challenging conditions.”

The Museum Expedition offers high school students an opportunity to develop projects for science and social studies fairs, and with advance arrangements, students may also receive elective high school credit. Teachers who participate can earn University of Alabama continuing education units or professional development hours.

For more information, telephone 205/348-7550, e-mail museum.expedition@ua.edu, or visit the web site at www.amnh.ua.edu.

Editor’s Note: A media availability is scheduled for June 19 at 10 a.m. at St. Stephens Park for a behind-the-scenes tour of the excavation in Washington County. From U.S. Highway 43 South, turn right onto Washington County Road 34 near mile markers 56 and 57. Drive seven-tenths of a mile, and take the right fork. Go another 5.6 miles from the fork to St. Stephens, and take the right fork by the First United Methodist Church. The paved road will become a dirt road for six-tenths of a mile to the park entrance, then go 1.1 mile to the parking lot. Lunch will be provided. For questions en route, phone 205/886-0655.