Fort Payne, Alabama Fort Payne, Alabama Aerial view of Fort Payne(Lookout Mountain in background) Aerial view of Fort Payne Location in De - Kalb County and the state of Alabama Location in De - Kalb County and the state of Alabama Fort Payne is a town/city in and governmental center of county of De - Kalb County, Alabama, United States.
In the 19th century, the site of Fort Payne was the locale of Willstown, an meaningful village of the Cherokee citizens .
During the 1830s before to Indian removal, the US Army under command of Major John Payne assembled a fort here that was used to intern Cherokees until relocation to Oklahoma.
By the 1860s, Fort Payne and the encircling area were still sparsely settled.
In 1878 Fort Payne became the county seat, and in 1889 it was incorporated as a town.
With the culmination of rail lines between Birmingham and Chattanooga, Fort Payne began to grow, as it was on the rail line.
In the late 1880s, Fort Payne experienced explosive expansion as investors and workers from New England and the North flooded into the region to exploit coal and iron deposits identified a several years earlier.
Many of the notable and historic buildings in Fort Payne date from this reconstructionof economic growth, including the state's earliest standing theater, the Fort Payne Opera House; the former factory of the Hardware Manufacturing Company (today known as the W.
Davis Mill Building and home to an antiques mall and deli), and the Fort Payne Depot Museum, formerly the passenger station for the present-day Norfolk Southern Railway.
Many of the Boom promoters left the region, and Fort Payne experienced a reconstructionof economic decline.
This was the beginning of decades of hosiery manufacture in Fort Payne. By the beginning of the 21st century, the hosiery trade in Fort Payne working over 7,000 citizens in more than 100 mills.
Beginning in the 1990s, the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Central American Free Trade Agreement lowered tariffs on textile products imported into the United States, resulting in large increases in sock imports.
Many businesses in Fort Payne accused foreign manufacturers, especially those from China, of engaging in dumping of socks below cost to force American companies out of the sock business.
By 2005, hosiery foundry employment in Fort Payne had declined to around 5,500, and a several mills had closed.
Reacting more quickly to shifts than at the end of the Boom, in the 1990s, company and civic leaders in Fort Payne began to take steps to diversify the city's economy.
Fort Payne homes the command posts for the close-by Little River Canyon National Preserve, a 14,000-acre (57 km2) National Park Service facility established by Congress in 1992.
Manitou Cave is also near Fort Payne.
Little River Canyon, just outside Fort Payne town/city limits The nation music group Alabama is based in Fort Payne.
Fort Payne is inside a 30-minute drive of substantial water recreational areas, prominently Guntersville Lake, and Weiss Lake, an artificial lake on the Coosa River.
Fort Payne is also near Mentone, a prominent mountain resort region known for summer children's camps and rustic hotels, restaurants and cabins.
Fort Payne is positioned in northeastern Alabama at 34 27 14 N 85 42 24 W (34.453829, -85.706648). According to the U.S.
Enumeration Bureau, the town/city has a total region of 55.8 square miles (144.6 km2), of which 55.5 square miles (143.7 km2) is territory and 0.35 square miles (0.9 km2), or 0.64%, is water. The town/city center lies in a narrow valley on Big Wills Creek in the Cumberland Plateau region immediately west of Lookout Mountain, with Sand Mountain somewhat more removed to the west.
The town/city limits reach to the east and south so that more than half of the city's region is now positioned on Lookout Mountain.
Fort Payne is notable for a subtropical climate.
The city's northern side was hit by an F4 tornado on May 19, 1973, causing considerable damage. Exactly ten years later, a tornado hit the town/city again.
In the Palm Sunday tornado outbreak of 1994, an F3 tornado passed just west of the town/city Occasionally, a hurricane that has made landfall in the Gulf of Mexico will reach Fort Payne as a tropical storm or tropical depression.
However, in 1995 the eye of Hurricane Opal reached Fort Payne with hurricane-force winds. The 1993 Storm of the Century dumped more than 20 inches (51 cm) of snow on Fort Payne, immobilizing the town/city and the encircling area for days.
Fort Payne had at the 2010 census a populace of 14,012.
There were 5,585 housing units at an average density of 100.0 per square mile (38.6/km2) The ethnic makeup of the town/city was 83.22% White, 4.53% Black or African American, 0.80% Native American, 0.55% Asian, 0.16% Pacific Islander, 8.41% from other competitions, and 2.33% from two or more competitions.
Former town/city hall in Fort Payne In the city, the populace was spread out with 23.4% under the age of 18, 10.2% from 18 to 24, 29.3% from 25 to 44, 21.6% from 45 to 64, and 15.6% who were 65 years of age or older.
Fort Payne is served by the Fort Payne City Schools system.
Schools in the precinct include Wills Valley Elementary (K-2), Williams Avenue Elementary (3-4), Fort Payne Middle School (5-8), Ruhama Junior High School (K-8) and Fort Payne High School (9-12).
Fort Payne Imaging - MRI,CT,Ultrasound - Outpatient facility For a time beginning in 1989, Fort Payne held the world record for "Largest Cake Ever Baked", for a cake of 128,238 pounds (58,168 kg) baked to memorialize the city's centennial. "Geographic Identifiers: 2010 Demographic Profile Data (G001): Fort Payne city, Alabama".
"History of De - Kalb County".
"History of De - Kalb County".
"Fort Payne".
"New Retail Distribution Center in De - Kalb Will Employ up to 600 Workers".
"De - Kalb Assessing Tornado Damage," The Huntsville Times, March 29, 1994, p.
"Area Escapes Storm's Worst," The Huntsville Times, October 5, 1995, p.
Climate Summary for Fort Payne "Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2015".
"Annual Estimates of the Resident Population: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2013".
2010 general profile of populace and housing characteristics of Fort Payne from the US census "Fort Payne City Schools".
Fort Payne City Schools.
Geological Survey: Fort Payne, Alabama Earthquake of 29 April 2003 Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Fort Payne.
City of Fort Payne official website Fort Payne On - Line, improve website Landmarks of De - Kalb County, Alabama Municipalities and communities of De - Kalb County, Alabama, United States Cities in Alabama - Populated places established in 1889 - Cities in De - Kalb County, Alabama - Micropolitan areas of Alabama - County seats in Alabama - U.S.
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