Selma
a city and county-seat of Dallas co., Ala.; on the Alabama river, and on the Western of Alabama, and the Louisville and Nashville and other railroads; 50 miles W. of Montgomery. Here Orphanage, public library, Y. M. C. A., Alabama Baptist Colored University, and other public buildings, electric lights, National and State banks, and several daily and weekly newspapers. There is regular steamboat connection with Mobile. The city has an ice factory, cottonseed oil mill, railroad machine and carwheel shops, a planing mill, iron works, engine works, extensive cotton factories, etc. During the Civil War the city contained an arsenal, extensive powder works, and a gun foundry. It fell into the hands of the Union forces a few days before the surrender of General Lee.
Pop. (1910) 13,649; (1920) 15,589.