Piedmont Alabama

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Piedmont Alabama

The area now known as Piedmont is a community that began in the early 1840’s. Located at the crossroads of two early post roads. Tradition has it that a hollow stump was used by the mailman to deposit and pick up the mail. This point received the official name of “Hollow Stump.”

The city is located in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountain chain and is surrounded by mountains on the city’s southern and eastern sides. The area is home to Duggar Mountain, which is Alabama’s second highest point, only trailing Mt. Cheaha by a small margin.

Home of the Chief Ladiga Trail

Piedmont Alabama Population

Piedmont is a city in Calhoun and Cherokee counties. The population was 4,878 at the 2010 census.

Location of Piedmont in Calhoun County and Cherokee County, Alabama Coordinates: 33°55′34″N 85°36′47″W

Piedmont Alabama Directions

The city is approximately one and a half hours West of Atlanta, Georgia via US Hwy 278, one and a half hours northeast of Birmingham, 20 minutes north of Anniston, Alabama via AL-21, and 25 minutes east of Gadsden, Alabama via US Hwy 278. The campus of Jacksonville State University in Jacksonville, Alabama is approximately ten miles south of Piedmont via AL-21. 

 

Later, a registered post office named “Griffen’s Creek” was established by the Postmaster General. Major Jacob Forney Dailey of North Carolina came to Alabama in 1848 and bought land from the Prices family. History states the Prices were believed to be the first landowners here. Major Dailey named the area “Cross Plains”.
An official post-office was named “Cross Plains” on September 22, 1851. For a few months the office was discontinued in 1869. In 1870 the name was changed to “Patona.” But on June 7, 1870, the name was changed back to “Cross Plains.” The name “Patona” was found to be most undesirable.

 

Piedmont Alabama Demographics

The population of Piedmont Alabama as of 2020 is 4,521 and consist of 82.8% White Alone, 12.2% Black or African American Alone, and 2.27% Hispanic or Latino.

Compiled in 1921 by Thomas McAdory Owen, LL.D.:

Post office and incorporated town, on the Southern Railway and the Seaboard Air Line Railway, in the northeast corner of Calhoun County, 13 miles northeast of Jacksonville and about 25 miles northeast of Anniston.

Altitude:  705 feet. 

Population:  1880 – 381;  1890 – 711;  1900 – 1,745; 1910 – 2,226; 1916 – 3,000. 

Its banks are the First National and the Farmers & Merchants Bank (State).  The Piedmont Journal, a Democratic weekly, established in 1907, is published there.  Its industries are large cotton mills, 2 cotton ginneries, and a rim-binding factory.  It was first called Cross Plains, from its situation on the edge of a plain and at the crossing of two important stagecoach roads.  The name was changed to Piedmont about 1880.  The first settlers were Neal Ferguson, Jacob F. Daily, Hampton Graham, Gilbert Craig, John W. Ledbetter, James Price, Dr. R. G. Teague and Dr. John B. Cowden.

References. – Polk’s Alabama gazetteer, 1888-9, p. 291;  Lippincott’s gazetteer, 1913, p. 1444; Alabama Official and Statistical Register, 1915.

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