Ala. Code § 23-1-3
The state, acting through the State Department of Transportation and its duly authorized employees, and the various counties of the state, acting through the county commissions and their duly authorized employees, in the doing of public roads work shall have and exercise the right, power, and authority, when deemed necessary or advisable to do so, to close public roads to traffic and, when possible so to do, to make detour roads and to contract for such land as may be necessary for such detour roads; also to acquire, by purchase, or by condemnation, land necessary for drainage ditches and borrow pits, lime and stone quarries, clay and clay pits, sand and sand pits and gravel and gravel pits, together with any and all other material of every character that may be necessary or essential or desired in the construction and maintenance of highways and bridges, and to tap and draw materials from the same to such extent as may be desired, and the State Department of Transportation shall also have the right to acquire by purchase or condemnation rights-of-way necessary for ingress and egress to such material pits as above named.
Ala. Code § 23-1-3 (1975)