Horace King became a highly accomplished Master Builder and emerged from the Civil War as a legislator in the State of Alabama.

"[3] Horace King was born enslaved in 1807 in the Cheraw District of South Carolina, in present-day Chesterfield County.

"[5] Taught to read and write early, King became a proficient carpenter and mechanic by his teenage years.

[4] In 1832, Godwin received a contract to construct a 560-foot (170 m) bridge across the Chattahoochee River from Columbus, Georgia to Girard, Alabama (today Phenix City).

[12] Between the completion of the Columbus City Bridge in 1833 and the early 1840s, King and Godwin partnered on eight major construction projects throughout the Southern United States.

[13][14] During a time of financial difficulty, in 1837, Godwin transferred the enslavement of King to his wife and her uncle, William Carney Wright of Montgomery, Alabama.

[4] Wright allowed King to marry Frances Gould Thomas, a free woman of color, in April 1839.

[4] Slavery states had incorporated the principle of partus sequitur ventrem into law since the colonial period, which said that children took the social status of their mothers, whether enslaved or free.

King worked independently as architect and superintendent of major bridge projects in Columbus, Mississippi, (1843) and Wetumpka, Alabama, (1844).

But, under Alabama law of the time, a formerly enslaved person was allowed to remain in the state only for a year after manumission.

After completing the obstructions on the Apalachicola, Confederates tasked King to construct defenses on the Alabama River before returning to Columbus in 1863.

King and his men were assigned to assist in constructing vessels at the Columbus Iron Works and Navy Yard.

In 1863–64, King constructed a rolling mill for the Iron Works, which manufactured cladding for Confederate ironclad warships.

Gen. James H. Wilson assaulted Columbus in April 1865, burning all of King's bridges in the process, including the one he had finished less than two years earlier.

Over the next three years, King would construct three more bridges across the Chattahoochee: in Columbus, and two at West Point, Georgia, plus two large factories and the Lee County, Alabama, courthouse.

While in LaGrange, King continued building bridges and expanded to include other construction projects, specifically businesses and schools.

[28] King received laudatory obituaries in Georgia's major newspapers, a rarity for African Americans in former slavery states.

The award was accepted on his behalf by his great-grandson, Horace H. King, Jr.[29] He was remembered both for his engineering skill and his character.