Kowaliga, Alabama

Kowaliga
Benson
Kowaliga Industrial Community
Rural village
Lake Martin aerial view, including Kowaliga Bridge
Lake Martin aerial view, including Kowaliga Bridge
Kowaliga is located in Alabama
Kowaliga
Kowaliga
Coordinates: 32°44′24″N 85°58′09″W / 32.74000°N 85.96917°W / 32.74000; -85.96917
Establishmentc. 1890
Closurec. 1926
Founded byJohn Jackson Benson
Government
 • Community leaderWilliam E. Benson
AddressElmore County, and Tallapoosa County, Alabama, U.S.
GNIS feature ID151968[1]

Kowaliga, also known as Kowaliga Industrial Community[2] and Benson,[3] was a former unincorporated village and historically African-American community active from roughly 1890 until 1926, and located in Elmore County and later Tallapoosa County in Alabama, United States.[4]

The area started as a Muscogee tribal land of the same name and in the same location. In the late 19th-century and early 20th-century the African American community was founded by John Jackson Benson with support from his son William E. Benson. Benson had been enslaved and upon release he worked to purchase his former owners plantation land. The community had been the home of industrial farming and business; the Kowaliga School, a private school for learning industrial and domestic skills; the Dixie Industrial Company, a business enterprise to provide work and experience for students and the community; and the short-lived Dixie Line, the first Black-owned railroad built in 1914.[2][5] Not much is known about the detailed history but many photographs exist, and it has been a renewed focus of researchers starting in the early 2000s.

Part of the former community is now submerged under the Kowaliga Bridge spanning Lake Martin,[6] which occurred after the completion of the Martin Dam in 1926. The name "Kowaliga" has been used to describe many modern-day places in the area of Lake Martin, particularly in or near the former community.

  1. ^ "Kowaliga". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior. Retrieved September 11, 2024.
  2. ^ a b The American Educational Review. Vol. 30. American Educational Company. December 25, 1909. p. 248 – via Google Books.
  3. ^ Hedreen, Siri (April 28, 2021). "Timeline: The rise and fall of Benson". Alexander City Outlook (article and image carousel). Retrieved March 6, 2023.
  4. ^ "Kowaliga, Ala. Negro Community, Does Unique Work". The Tennessean. February 25, 1912. p. 28. Retrieved March 6, 2023.
  5. ^ Sznajderman, Michael; Atkins, Leah Rawls (Spring 2005). "William Benson and the Kowaliga School". Alabama Heritage. No. 76. The University of Alabama.
  6. ^ Morris, Bilal G. (February 14, 2022). "The Black Town Under Lake Martin: A Father & Son's Dream Of Greatness". NewsOne. Retrieved March 4, 2023.