I manually created a folder called resources and put resources in it, I now want to create an archive page at /resources/

Basically, I created a folder manually on my server under www/ called resources/

I uploaded images and pdfs to this folder so their links would be site.com/resources/resource_name.pdf

I have a category on my posts called resources. I'm trying to create a resource archive page at /resources/ but I'm getting a 403 forbidden error because of the folder I manually created. I've already checked perms and they are all good. Changing the folder name DOES work, but I want to achieve both the /resources/ archive page and having /resources/resource_name.pdf

The reason I didn't upload these files with the media manager and create perma links is because the perma links always redirect to something like site.com/wp-uploads/08/06/file_name.jpg and I hate how it looks. If I create a perma link, I want that to be the link, I don't want it redirecting.