Native American Burial Grounds located in Fort Payne as new highway development begins...(details)
DeSoto's visit to Big Will's Valley where he meets Chief Coosa was spent near Valley Head (more)
Lookout Mountain Parkway is a beautiful way to see part of our very scenic area (more)
Full Wave Design
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Fort Payne History
A Small Town Big on History
The City of Fort Payne occupies an area ceded to the U.S. by the Cherokee Indians. The Treaty of Echota, signed in 1835 stipulated that the Indians were to leave the ceded lands by May 26, 1838, Some, however, were reluctant to leave. Early in 1838, General Winfield Scott, following instruction from the president, ordered the forced removal of the Indians who still remained.
Captain John G. Payne arrived in Fort Payne, then known as Will's town, in February 1838 and approved a site for an Indian stockade near Big Spring. In March, Captain James H. Rogers, commanding 20 men and two officers, garrisoned at Big Spring and built the stockade which he named Fort Payne in honor of his friend, Captain Payne. The Cherokees were rounded up and held in the stockades, including Fort Payne, until they began their forced march West, the famous Trail of Tears.
In the early 1820s Sequoyah, the Cherokee indian who is celebrated as an illiterate genius who endowed a whole tribe with learning, moved to Willstown from the Overhill town of Tuskegee in Tennessee. Sequoyah is the only man in history to conceive and perfect in its entirety an alphabet or syllabary. It was while living in Willstown that he finished the alphabet that took him 12 years. Within a few months almost all of the Cherokee Nation could read and write.
Born to a Cherokee mother and a German father, he fought beside Sam Houston and Andrew Jackson as a young warrior against the hostile Creek Indians in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in the War of 1812. In 1838 Sequoyah walked with his people in the Trail of Tears.
The Wills Valley Railroad was incorporated in 1852, and the decades of 1860 and 1870 witnessed the coming of the railroad which gave Fort Payne and the county rail connections with the leading cities of the country. This was a crucial innovation for the city that offered great opportunity for growth.
In 1885, coal and iron ore were discovered in the area and investors envisioned a Pittsburgh of the South. The Fort Payne Coal and Iron Company was organized in 1888 and purchased 32,000 acres in and around Fort Payne. The City of Fort Payne was incorporated on February 28, 1889.
The Boom Years began. The influx of "Yankee" investors swelled the population from about 450 to thousands. A 125-room hotel was built and occupied an entire city block. The Fort Payne Depot was built in 1891 and the Fort Payne Opera House in 1889 to help accommodate the growing population. Businesses were established and many lovely homes constructed.
In the 1890s, iron and coal deposits began to play out and coupled with a national economic panic the Boom ended in 1893.
History of the Sock Industry in Fort Payne
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