Happy Birthday Bama

Alabama is 186 years old today.

On December 14, 1819, President James Monroe signed Alabama into statehood making it the 22nd state to enter the Union. The growing region to be known as Alabama was declared a territory in 1817, separate from the old Mississippi Territory. Two years later, the U.S. Congress passed an act allowing the inhabitants to create a state constitution. Delegates to the Alabama Constitutional Convention met in the temporary capitol of Huntsville in the summer of 1819 to draft a constitution. That November, Territorial Governor William W. Bibb, newly elected as the state’s first Governor, took the oath of office and, on December 14th of that year, Alabama officially became a state. This date, known as “Alabama Day,” was first celebrated statewide in 1903 and adopted by resolution of the Alabama Legislature in 1923.