With Alabama’s bicentennial being only four years away, the state’s first capital is preparing to offer visitors a look back into history.

Alabama became the nation’s 22nd state Dec. 14, 1819, and Old Cahawba was its first capital. The archeological park is having a wagon tour Sept. 5 to look back on its history.

The once antebellum river town was Alabama’s first capitol, reigning from 1820 through 1826. After the capitol was moved to Tuscaloosa in 1826, the once thriving town was nearly abandoned within weeks.

“With our state’s bicentennial coming up, we thought it might be a good time to start talking about Cahawba as the state’s first capital,” said Linda Derry, site director at Old Cahawba. “This is a tour for people to rediscover Cahawba as our first state capital.”

Derry said a lot people have read about Old Cahawba in history books, but many of them don’t know the real history beyond the gates of the park.

“We wanted to take people on a wagon tour and look at the landscape here and consider some of these stories that everyone’s heard, because sometimes when you look at history just sitting in a library or something, it doesn’t make sense until you look at it in context,” Derry said. “Looking at the physical evidence here at Old Cahawba, the story takes on a completely different light and you begin to understand what the true facts are.”

As a state park, Old Cahawba relies on visitors for support and to stay open, and that’s why Derry is hopeful that more and more people will continue to take part in some of the things that the parks offers, and come back for more.

“We wont survive if we don’t have visitors. That’s how we prove that this is an important place,” Derry said. “Once they come, a lot of people fall in love and they keep visiting and revisiting.”

Derry said the tour is all about the conversation, and seeing what other people know about the first capital.

“I think it’s going to be more of a conversation, definitely not a lecture. So there will be a lot of discussion and give and take on this tour,” Derry said. “Most people in Alabama have heard of Old Cahawba, but until you really see it yourself, until you walk where the historical people walked, it’s really hard to understand what happened here.”

The tour is set for Sept. 5 at 10 a.m. and tickets are $10 for adults and $8 for children. The one-hour tour has 28 seats available and visitors will be seated on a first come first serve basis. Derry asked that participants arrive 15 minutes early.

For more information, call the park at 872-8058.

“I would like to encourage people to come out,” Derry said. “I think we’re going to have a good time and I’d like to hear about what people know about Cahawba.”