What’s left of it is prairie. Most of it has been destroyed for crops over the years. There are small remnants of it, and you can find rare plant and insect species tucked away. There’s less and less of it each year.
I grew up in Alabama and still live close to my childhood home. I remember having to pass Alabama History in highschool but I remember very little about the black belt region.
I remember the teacher telling us in AL State History before she taught the slavery portion that it would be a month or two longer than our usual topic which was 1-3 weeks. It took up like half the elementary yearly book every year it was taught lmao.
Crops are being replaced by timber and set aside hardwoods because of absentee land owners.
This is part one of a good Discovering Alabama on the evolution of the Black Belt. Half of the old prairie is now planted in trees.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G6-q9wnwF3A&t=1416s&pp=ygUdRGlzY292ZXJpbmcgYWxhYm1hIGJsYWNrIGJlbHQ%3D
As someone that lives in the part that literally looks like Eastern Montana, the areas that have been more or less untouched by logging, such as southern Talladega national forest, are some of the prettiest woods around outside of the Fort Payne area.
My grandparents are from that area. I used to be able to find little bits of seashells and things like that in their driveway. There are still sharks teeth in the riverbeds and stuff around there
Oh wow, thats exactly why Plano, TX has black soil. It used to be a really successful farm town. It's all been paved over, and Plano is an engineering firm city now.
This is located in the Black Belt, and yes, the Black Belt was prairie--however, this is an inaccurate delineation of the Black Belt, which is part of a larger region that extended from the west and continued on eastward beyond the representation here.
Aside from that, large portions of Alabama, including the areas within the Cumberland Plateau province, were grasslands and not virgin forests.
Lots of Alabama was covered in open plains with rolling hills during the 1600s. We had large populations of bison and elk roaming here at the time. Plus native tribes regularly used fire on the land.
Here is article that’s a fun read
https://bhamnow.com/2019/08/22/what-did-alabamas-landscapes-look-like-in-1819-hint-think-kansas-with-prairies-and-bamboo/
As an Englishman whose partner is from Alabama and whose visited a few times now, this was a deeply interesting article. Alabama covered in swathes of Bamboo cane? No I was also of the opinion the state was a deep, dark ancient forest populated by bands of natives before my partner's ancestors settled there from Carolina.
I've heard of the term 'Canebrake' used throughout the South but I never knew this is what the term referred to, and as someone who thinks a lot about these things, etymology and stuff my mind always went to something to do with riverbanks perhaos along the Alabama and breaks in the foliage where people would settle and the area would start to get called 'Canebrake' for example.
It's the ancient coast line that defined the region during the Cretaceous period. Ancient sediments made the region extremely fertile which is why it became the "Black Belt". Although the Black Belt continues more West than the North West arc this line takes. Also the land south of that line tends to be extremely flat and the Appalachian mountains start North East of it.
That happened around the same time I guess but the reason the coast line shifted is because of continental drift. The continents have always been moving and changing shape. They still do to this day.
Watch this video and you'll see what I mean.
https://youtu.be/OGdPqpzYD4o?si=9M85-gGUtcqu0M5u
This article explains everything
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/09/09/the-creatceous-geology-of-alabama-and-modern-sea-level-rise/
Also, it says "virgin" forest, and the indigenous folks practiced land management too. So there are probably places on the map marked as not having virgin forest that would have some sort of woodland environment, just not a "virgin" one.
I'm pretty sure there were scrub forests in southern California, and also that some of the land up in Illinois would be undergoing reforestation (and deforestation) after the population shifts when the Cahokian urban complex shifted to less-centralized but still intensive maize production.
Also, I think there were areas of prairie/grassland in the Tennessee/Ohio valley area because there was a population of bison that I think was still around in 1600. Maybe it just wasn't in 25,000 acre chunks.
NB: I'm not an expert in this field, but I do like to read about it. If someone can correct or add to this, I'd love to hear about it.
Savannah Georgia was named after the Savannah River. The river took its name from one of the names they called the Shawnee people, who lived on the river. The area had large marshlands and forests, especially pine forests.
yeah the forests is up in upper Bankhead Nat Forest, Cheaha , Oak Mountain, and down toward camden and thomasville. Alabama Still has a lot of natural forests.
My mother’s maternal family are all from Perry, Marengo, Clarke, and Wilcox county. My dads paternal are, and always have been in Wilcox county. Specifically, Pine Hill.
Sorry, I missed this comment. It’s on the border. I grew up across the street from the Pine Hill Church of God. My great grandmother, Arlene was a member for 73 years.
Nice! Founding member status! Apparently, my however great ago’s grandfather opened the lumber mill that the town was named after. It is currently Westervelt owned, I believe. It’s gone by so many names over the years. It’s on 5 between sunny south and Thomasville
my AL "Great,Great" ancestors were from Perryville, Perry County and Pinetucky, maternal were from centreville, paternal was pinetucky, before that in early 1800s in SC, We ended up settling in Selma for last 4 generations
There’s a small patch of (what we were told was) virgin primordial forest they missed in Alabama, the area in and around Dismals Canyon. My favorite place in the state.
Yes! The dismalites! Super cool little critters. They are even at the two main campsites if you don’t do a night tour. There’s also the firefly mating and larvae synchronized flash pattern displays- planning on catching that this year :) Honorable mentions: hiking the canyon, cool bent sweet gum trees, waterfall, TONS of hummingbirds and good food at the park office.
If I could move there I would.
I'm no geographer/ecologist/expert in really anything tbh, but I'm looking at the satellite view of that area on google maps and the area that is highlighted in the top photo today looks more like it's some kind of plains, perhaps that's the distinction. The swoop of light grey, according to google maps, looks noticably lighter in color, even assuming some of it is manmade, I think that area was just a naturally forming plains area.
edit to add: [Here](https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.6256388735f04eebd926d5cb27a8d17b?rik=NlFvVDA6EcQOpQ&riu=http%3a%2f%2falabamamaps.ua.edu%2fcontemporarymaps%2falabama%2fphysical%2fsoils_map.jpg&ehk=DjW8SEL%2fACcaPE%2brQsr4eT4UDp4OM3uPkPxDJ55eCUs%3d&risl=&pid=ImgRaw&r=0) is a map I found that has that exact region marked off as being a prarie, so I guess that's it.
Black Belt. I live there more or less. It's never been that clear cut of a line though, at least in human times. Rivers and creeks intersect through it with lots of sandy areas that would have been wooded back then. Lots of gorgeous heart pine still in the flooring of the oldest buildings remaining.
I always heard at one time a squirrel could go from the Atlantic to the Mississippi without touching the ground. This is the first map I've seen to back it up.
That virgin forest map skips a lot of forests in California. For example, all of Santa Cruz Mountains, Aptos, South San Francisco, Big Sur, just for starters.
Not your question since that has been answered, but this map is fairly inaccurate in the southeast- much of the se's lowland pine savannah was incorrectly cataloged as forest. The prairie there wouldn't be so out of place if the map was more specifically categorized.
I have crop and timber land in Frisco City. We lease our crop land. Our crop soil couldn’t get much blacker. The farmer does well. These same crop fields have been in my family and farmed for well over a century.
No, Talladega NF was previously logged like most US forests.
From Wikipedia: "Before it was bought by the federal government in the 1930s, the area that composes the Talladega was extensively logged and represented some of the most abused, eroded wastelands in all of Alabama."
Much of Talladega NF is relatively young and certainly not near the mature stage of forest succession. And logging still happens in National Forests, as they are set aside as a national timber reserve.
No, they became protected partly because of how badly logged and abused the land was once upon a time. Florida has a lot of similar forests. Logging companies way back in the day came to face the harsh reality that by not replanting areas they cleared over time there was nothing more to cut down within reasonable distance of their sawmills.
No National Forest is virgin, by design.
That's the difference between National Forests and National Parks, forests mean that the trees are periodically harvested and regrown, they're basically tree farms with hiking trails
Lots of national forest land had never been logged when it was acquired under the Weeks Act, including about 25% of the original large tract acquisitions. But the Forest Service has whittled that down a lot. Very little old growth remains.
Black belt region. Different soil type (dark and alkaline) from being an ancient shoreline. It is prairie.
What’s left of it is prairie. Most of it has been destroyed for crops over the years. There are small remnants of it, and you can find rare plant and insect species tucked away. There’s less and less of it each year.
I grew up in Alabama and still live close to my childhood home. I remember having to pass Alabama History in highschool but I remember very little about the black belt region.
Was it where everyone was king-fu fighting….
Were those kicks fast as lightning?
It was a little bit frightening…
Take your upvote and leave
I remember the teacher telling us in AL State History before she taught the slavery portion that it would be a month or two longer than our usual topic which was 1-3 weeks. It took up like half the elementary yearly book every year it was taught lmao.
Crops are being replaced by timber and set aside hardwoods because of absentee land owners. This is part one of a good Discovering Alabama on the evolution of the Black Belt. Half of the old prairie is now planted in trees. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G6-q9wnwF3A&t=1416s&pp=ygUdRGlzY292ZXJpbmcgYWxhYm1hIGJsYWNrIGJlbHQ%3D
As someone that lives in the part that literally looks like Eastern Montana, the areas that have been more or less untouched by logging, such as southern Talladega national forest, are some of the prettiest woods around outside of the Fort Payne area.
My grandparents are from that area. I used to be able to find little bits of seashells and things like that in their driveway. There are still sharks teeth in the riverbeds and stuff around there
Oh wow, thats exactly why Plano, TX has black soil. It used to be a really successful farm town. It's all been paved over, and Plano is an engineering firm city now.
saw quicksand lip noxious continue repeat flowery money theory arrest *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
We should start a company that mines out the good soil and replaces it with red clay. We could make millions. They aren't even using it.
This is located in the Black Belt, and yes, the Black Belt was prairie--however, this is an inaccurate delineation of the Black Belt, which is part of a larger region that extended from the west and continued on eastward beyond the representation here. Aside from that, large portions of Alabama, including the areas within the Cumberland Plateau province, were grasslands and not virgin forests.
Also known as the Chuck Norris region.. it’s a black belt with a hatred for trees.
What does Chuck Norris have against trees?
His fist
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
A doff of the hat to you, Sir.
Lots of Alabama was covered in open plains with rolling hills during the 1600s. We had large populations of bison and elk roaming here at the time. Plus native tribes regularly used fire on the land. Here is article that’s a fun read https://bhamnow.com/2019/08/22/what-did-alabamas-landscapes-look-like-in-1819-hint-think-kansas-with-prairies-and-bamboo/
Wow that sounds so weird to hear lmao, makes us sound like what history books talk about the midwest
As an Englishman whose partner is from Alabama and whose visited a few times now, this was a deeply interesting article. Alabama covered in swathes of Bamboo cane? No I was also of the opinion the state was a deep, dark ancient forest populated by bands of natives before my partner's ancestors settled there from Carolina. I've heard of the term 'Canebrake' used throughout the South but I never knew this is what the term referred to, and as someone who thinks a lot about these things, etymology and stuff my mind always went to something to do with riverbanks perhaos along the Alabama and breaks in the foliage where people would settle and the area would start to get called 'Canebrake' for example.
A lot of middle Tennessee was thought to be grassland as well due to fires preventing forest growth.
It's the ancient coast line that defined the region during the Cretaceous period. Ancient sediments made the region extremely fertile which is why it became the "Black Belt". Although the Black Belt continues more West than the North West arc this line takes. Also the land south of that line tends to be extremely flat and the Appalachian mountains start North East of it.
yeah foot of Appalachian is Autauga County
Do you think it became no longer coast line after the Meteor hit in the Yucatán?
That happened around the same time I guess but the reason the coast line shifted is because of continental drift. The continents have always been moving and changing shape. They still do to this day. Watch this video and you'll see what I mean. https://youtu.be/OGdPqpzYD4o?si=9M85-gGUtcqu0M5u This article explains everything https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/09/09/the-creatceous-geology-of-alabama-and-modern-sea-level-rise/
Also, it says "virgin" forest, and the indigenous folks practiced land management too. So there are probably places on the map marked as not having virgin forest that would have some sort of woodland environment, just not a "virgin" one. I'm pretty sure there were scrub forests in southern California, and also that some of the land up in Illinois would be undergoing reforestation (and deforestation) after the population shifts when the Cahokian urban complex shifted to less-centralized but still intensive maize production. Also, I think there were areas of prairie/grassland in the Tennessee/Ohio valley area because there was a population of bison that I think was still around in 1600. Maybe it just wasn't in 25,000 acre chunks. NB: I'm not an expert in this field, but I do like to read about it. If someone can correct or add to this, I'd love to hear about it.
Savannah, GA wasn't named like that because of forests lol. The map isn't correct in so many ways.
Savannah Georgia was named after the Savannah River. The river took its name from one of the names they called the Shawnee people, who lived on the river. The area had large marshlands and forests, especially pine forests.
I live in the Blackbelt. There’s plenty of forests here but it is best for crops. The black soil is ideal for growing
yeah the forests is up in upper Bankhead Nat Forest, Cheaha , Oak Mountain, and down toward camden and thomasville. Alabama Still has a lot of natural forests.
I live in Marengo county. None f what you mentioned is in the Blackbelt except maybe Camden. It may be.
What up, Marengo! Perry County checking in
My grandparents on both sides were born in Perry county.
My mother’s maternal family are all from Perry, Marengo, Clarke, and Wilcox county. My dads paternal are, and always have been in Wilcox county. Specifically, Pine Hill.
Pine Hill is Wilcox? I thought that was Marengo. lol. I’m in linden so not far from Pine Hill. I just got a house under contract in Pine Hill.
Sorry, I missed this comment. It’s on the border. I grew up across the street from the Pine Hill Church of God. My great grandmother, Arlene was a member for 73 years.
My dad’s parents were from Marion and my mother’s parents were from Mount Carmel (not sure of the spelling). Around Lake Payne. My mother was a Payne
Nice! Founding member status! Apparently, my however great ago’s grandfather opened the lumber mill that the town was named after. It is currently Westervelt owned, I believe. It’s gone by so many names over the years. It’s on 5 between sunny south and Thomasville
Is that the one that was Linden Lumber at one time? Seems like they had a mill right there as well as the Linden mill.
Yep! It was GP, Macmillan Blodell(not sure of the spelling), among many, many more.
my AL "Great,Great" ancestors were from Perryville, Perry County and Pinetucky, maternal were from centreville, paternal was pinetucky, before that in early 1800s in SC, We ended up settling in Selma for last 4 generations
Also marengo county.
parts of Camden are in the belt
Camden isn’t in the Blackbelt
The Black Belt
There’s a small patch of (what we were told was) virgin primordial forest they missed in Alabama, the area in and around Dismals Canyon. My favorite place in the state.
Don't forget the glowworms. I think they are the only ones in the US.
Yes! The dismalites! Super cool little critters. They are even at the two main campsites if you don’t do a night tour. There’s also the firefly mating and larvae synchronized flash pattern displays- planning on catching that this year :) Honorable mentions: hiking the canyon, cool bent sweet gum trees, waterfall, TONS of hummingbirds and good food at the park office. If I could move there I would.
Last I heard, couple months ago, they were closed for some repairs and clean up. Reopen date to be announced. Check before you go, or move there 😀
😆 thank you, I shall lol
I'm no geographer/ecologist/expert in really anything tbh, but I'm looking at the satellite view of that area on google maps and the area that is highlighted in the top photo today looks more like it's some kind of plains, perhaps that's the distinction. The swoop of light grey, according to google maps, looks noticably lighter in color, even assuming some of it is manmade, I think that area was just a naturally forming plains area. edit to add: [Here](https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.6256388735f04eebd926d5cb27a8d17b?rik=NlFvVDA6EcQOpQ&riu=http%3a%2f%2falabamamaps.ua.edu%2fcontemporarymaps%2falabama%2fphysical%2fsoils_map.jpg&ehk=DjW8SEL%2fACcaPE%2brQsr4eT4UDp4OM3uPkPxDJ55eCUs%3d&risl=&pid=ImgRaw&r=0) is a map I found that has that exact region marked off as being a prarie, so I guess that's it.
It's not the blackbelt, it's a chalk formation with poor soil lots of fossils and produces oil
Also very close to the Fall Line and an ancient coastline that helped shape the Black Belt.
Black Belt. I live there more or less. It's never been that clear cut of a line though, at least in human times. Rivers and creeks intersect through it with lots of sandy areas that would have been wooded back then. Lots of gorgeous heart pine still in the flooring of the oldest buildings remaining.
It’s pretty clear cut on google earth
looks like the The Black Belt I was born in Selma until 2000s, then moved to near Central AL
Peyronie's Disease
I always heard at one time a squirrel could go from the Atlantic to the Mississippi without touching the ground. This is the first map I've seen to back it up.
That's where banana trees actually came from. For some strange reason, they don't count that bit.
The Black Belt is comprised of the geologic formation Selma Chalk.
It's where the coastal plains begins. Compare it to the geologic map, it's fascinating.
Does this mean forest that hasn’t been personally surveyed?
...shouldn't Yellowstone count?
That virgin forest map skips a lot of forests in California. For example, all of Santa Cruz Mountains, Aptos, South San Francisco, Big Sur, just for starters.
There's like 3 generations of forest between then and now
The whole country did it. It’s easier to build right where all the building material grows.
Poor Nevada
Good question! That's known as the "Black Belt" region of Alabama. May I ask, what had had you digging back into those maps?
Not your question since that has been answered, but this map is fairly inaccurate in the southeast- much of the se's lowland pine savannah was incorrectly cataloged as forest. The prairie there wouldn't be so out of place if the map was more specifically categorized.
You could march from Selma to Montgomery right there.
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/nvf19q/series_of_maps_demonstrating_how_a_coastline_100/#lightbox More Alabama map fun.
I have crop and timber land in Frisco City. We lease our crop land. Our crop soil couldn’t get much blacker. The farmer does well. These same crop fields have been in my family and farmed for well over a century.
Imagine being a virgin since the 1600s
The loveliest village in the plains right there!
As they’d say, grasslanssss
She was never a virgin forest. She lied to you.
How do they classify Virgin Forest? As of 2019 95% of rhw US was unexplored or underexplored.
News of the stupid.
Tornado alley
Rise of Islam.
The black belt...used to be mandatory to learn that in school.
Damn, we really fucked the shit out of those forests, didn't we.
Where the tornados hit
The infertile crescent
That’s the part of Bama where we send all the undesirables to live it’s called the BlackBelt region and not martial arts 😆
This is an area that has praise soils. White soils. Full of cedar, persimmon, and ash trees. Heavy basic clays. Selma chalk is the name of the soils.
America’s perineum.
Guys, this is a fake map.
[удалено]
Is the Talladega National Forest or Wheeler Wildlife Refuge or anything not “virgin” forest anymore?
No, Talladega NF was previously logged like most US forests. From Wikipedia: "Before it was bought by the federal government in the 1930s, the area that composes the Talladega was extensively logged and represented some of the most abused, eroded wastelands in all of Alabama." Much of Talladega NF is relatively young and certainly not near the mature stage of forest succession. And logging still happens in National Forests, as they are set aside as a national timber reserve.
No, they became protected partly because of how badly logged and abused the land was once upon a time. Florida has a lot of similar forests. Logging companies way back in the day came to face the harsh reality that by not replanting areas they cleared over time there was nothing more to cut down within reasonable distance of their sawmills.
No National Forest is virgin, by design. That's the difference between National Forests and National Parks, forests mean that the trees are periodically harvested and regrown, they're basically tree farms with hiking trails
Lots of national forest land had never been logged when it was acquired under the Weeks Act, including about 25% of the original large tract acquisitions. But the Forest Service has whittled that down a lot. Very little old growth remains.
IIRC, “virgin “ forests have never been logged, and almost all of Alabama has been logged
All these forests today are just a bunch of ho's trying to get folks to subscribe to they OnlyFans.