Travel Guide Huntsville

The city was founded in 1805 around a water source today called Big Spring. In 1819, it became the first capital of the State, before the title was awarded to Cahaba in 1820 and then to Montgomery in 1825. Epargnée during the war of Secession, it quickly became an important centre for the cotton trade, as well as a major railway node.After developing several centres for the production and storage of chemical munitions during the Second World War, Huntsville was running from the 1950 s to the space and aerospace industry. This is where Wernher von Braun, creator of the V 2 rocket programme for Nazi Germany and prisoner of war, developed a space programme on behalf of the United States, and was conducted with research that débouchèrent the conquest of space and the first steps of man on the moon. The NASA research centre, which has been in Huntsville, explains that a large part of its population is composed of scientists and technicians.Owing to the absence of destruction during the civil war, Huntsville has the largest number of antebellum homes throughout Alabama.