Post-Civil War Mass Grave Found in Alabama

The lesson, times were mighty tough back then.

(CNN) -- A mass grave unearthed Tuesday in downtown Montgomery, Alabama, is believed to contain bodies from an epidemic of yellow fever that swept the city in the 1870s, police said.

Two buildings from the 1940s were torn down at the site, and maintenance workers grading the land in preparation for the construction of a new building uncovered the remains, said Montgomery police spokesman Maj. Huey Thornton.

The site is adjacent to a cemetery, he said, and "based on the information we have from historical documents kept by the actual cemetery ... it does appear that it may be remains from a yellow fever epidemic in the 1870s."

Officials from the Alabama Archaeological Society and the Alabama Historical Association were at the site and are expected to be able to confirm that, he said.