Courtland is a town in Lawrence County,

Alabama Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...

, United States, and is included in the Decatur Metropolitan Area, as well as the Huntsville-Decatur Combined Statistical Area. The population was 609 at the 2010 census, down from 769 in 2000.

History

A small creek named Big Nance Creek runs through the town. The creek was named for a

Cherokee The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern ...

chief who lived in the area when the first European settlers arrived. The current town is reportedly located on the site of the Native American village. Courtland began as a small settlement known as Ebenezer in the early 1800s. Its early settlers were wealthy planters mostly from

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

, the

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and

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

. It was presently named for the federal courthouse and land office there. In 1818, a group known as the Courtland Land Company bought the land on which the town is now situated and subdivided it into lots.James P. Kaetz,
Courtland
" ''Encyclopedia of Alabama'', 20 June 2013. The town was incorporated on December 13, 1819, by the Alabama territorial legislature The early roads Gaines Trace and Byler Road went through town. One of the South's earliest railroads, the Tuscumbia, Courtland and Decatur Railroad, was organized at Courtland in 1831, and chartered the following year. The railroad's organizers routed the railroad to bypass the dangerous shoals along the

Tennessee River The Tennessee River is a long river located in the Southern United States, southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. Flowing through the states of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, it begins at the confluence of Fren ...

to the north. The railroad was absorbed by the Memphis and Charleston Railroad in the 1850s, and later became part of the Southern Railway. In 1835, Courtland physician Jack Shackelford organized a volunteer military unit to fight in the

Texas Revolution The Texas Revolution (October 2, 1835 – April 21, 1836) was a rebellion of colonists from the United States and Tejanos (Hispanic Texans) against the Centralist Republic of Mexico, centralist government of Mexico in the Mexican state of ...

. Known as the " Red Rovers" for the color of their uniforms, the company was captured by Mexican forces at Coleto in March 1836, and most of its men were killed in the Goliad massacre. Shackelford was among the few survivors. In 1944 and 1945, during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Courtland was home to the Courtland Army Airfield (Courtland AAF). It was dismantled after the war and given to the city of Courtland, which now operates it as Courtland Airport.

Courtland Historic District

In the early 1990s, more than 100 buildings in Courtland were listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

as the Courtland Historic District. Most of the buildings in the district date from the 1830s through the 1930s, and architectural styles include Federal,

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style combined its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century It ...

, Victorian,

Colonial Revival The Colonial Revival architectural style seeks to revive elements of American colonial architecture. The beginnings of the Colonial Revival style are often attributed to the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, which reawakened Americans to the arch ...

, and Neoclassical. The Town Square was part of the town's original 1818-1819 plan. Many of the commercial buildings facing the square, especially along College Street and Tennessee Street, were built in the 1890s and early 1900s. The train depot on the south side of the square, now a community center, was built in the late 1880s. The Old Sherrod Hotel, located at the northwest corner of Tennessee Street and Alabama Street, was built around 1930, and provided housing for early

Tennessee Valley Authority The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolin ...

employees. The John McMahon House, a Federal-style home built around 1830, is listed individually on the

. Rocky Hill Castle was a forced-labor plantation whose architecturally renowned plantation house was demolished in 1961.

Geography

Courtland is located at (34.668457, -87.310821). The town is concentrated in area along Big Nance Creek, a tributary of the

, west of Decatur and southeast of

Muscle Shoals Muscle Shoals is the largest city in Colbert County, Alabama, United States. It is located on the left bank of the Tennessee River in the northern part of the state and, as of the 2010 census, its population was 13,146. The estimated popula ...

. The town's municipal boundaries extend northeastward to U.S. Route 72. The town of North Courtland borders Courtland to the north. According to the

U.S. Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The U.S. Census Bureau is part of the U ...

, the town has a total area of , of which is land and 0.43% is water.

Demographics

From 1880 until 1910, Courtland was the largest town in Lawrence County, losing the distinction in 1920 to the county seat of Moulton, which has held it to date.1880-2010 U.S. Censuses research on Lawrence County, Alabama Communities As of the

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

of 2000, there were 769 people, 316 households, and 210 families residing in the town. The population density was . There were 363 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the town was 54.23%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 40.44%

Black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, 2.08% Native American, 0.26% Asian, 0.13%

Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe th ...

, and 2.86% from two or more races. 0.91% of the population were

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

or Latino of any race. There were 316 households, out of which 32.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 44.0% were

married couples Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...

living together, 20.3% had a female householder with no husband present, and 33.5% were non-families. 30.7% of all households were made up of individuals, and 14.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.43 and the average family size was 3.06. In the town, the population was spread out, with 27.8% under the age of 18, 8.7% from 18 to 24, 26.9% from 25 to 44, 23.0% from 45 to 64, and 13.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females there were 85.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 77.3 males. The median income for a household in the town was $27,500, and the median income for a family was $36,000. Males had a median income of $31,250 versus $17,188 for females. The

per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...

for the town was $14,456. About 18.1% of families and 20.2% of the population were below the

poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...

, including 22.7% of those under age 18 and 32.9% of those age 65 or over.

2020 census

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 583 people, 293 households, and 211 families residing in the city.

Notable people

* Sam Agee,

American football American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...

player * Thomas Jefferson Foster, two-term member of the

Confederate Congress The Confederate States Congress was both the provisional and permanent legislative assembly/legislature of the Confederate States of America that existed from February 1861 to April/June 1865, during the American Civil War. Its actions were, ...

* Jack Shackelford, one of the few survivors of the Goliad massacre

References

External links

* {{Authority control Towns in Lawrence County, Alabama Populated places established in 1819