This doesn't exactly answer your question, but it collects about everything I know of in ballad texts that might be interpreted to favor Alabama. - JG

I hasten to add that many versions of "John Henry" place him at "Big Bend Tunnel on the C & O Road."   The other textual item I know of that might favor West Virginia is "white house," which Scott Nelson believes refers to a building at the Richmond penitentiary. At least one other interpretation of "white house" invokes a West Virginia building. I suspect that it originates from "white road."