![]() ![]() Right now, it’s easy to get a job at any of them. The area is home to four industrial parks, with companies making glass, pallets and other products. Wayne Vardaman, the economic development director for Selma and Dallas County, says that people who only look downtown are missing the big picture. Once a prosperous city, Selma is suffering from years of neglect. What was once a used-car lot across from the St. ![]() Some of the sidewalks have given way to gravel. Its downtown buildings are handsome, but many are boarded up or overgrown with ivy. Selma was once a wealthy city, thanks to agriculture, manufacturing, retail and slavery, but those days are long over. The problem, as Lewis readily acknowledges, is that there’s almost nothing else of interest to tourists nearby. The Edmund Pettus Bridge, which marchers crossed on their way to a confrontation that led directly to passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, is a short block away. But the hotel is also an attractive option for tourists who are drawn to Selma as a pivot point in the civil rights movement. “It’s one of the last of the pre-Civil War riverfront hotels in the country,” says Jim Lewis, who spearheaded the renovation.īusiness is ramping up nicely, Lewis says, thanks largely to white-collar business travelers and wedding parties drawn to Selma’s antebellum mansions. Guests can look out the back at the Alabama River as it passes by Selma, or stand on wrought-iron terraces out front and listen to the trickle of a memorial fountain first installed in 1911. James Hotel, which was built in 1837, reopened in January after a $7 million renovation.
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