The Black Belt's largest city, Montgomery, was designated as the capital of Alabama in 1846. Because Alabama was geographically central to the slave states, Montgomery was also designated as the original capital of the Confederate States of America. The region's distance from the front lines during the American Civil War saved it from much of the ravages of war. Many of the Greek Revival mansions of the 19th-century planters have survived, as have some of the plantations' slave quarters. Gaineswood in Demopolis and Magnolia Grove in Greensboro, Alabama, are among those that can be visited by tourists today.