Attalla: The Mountain Town Lafayette Visited

Attalla sits in a bend of the Coosa River in Etowah County, and its name is the giveaway to its past. The word comes from the Cherokee language, probably from the word otali, meaning mountain, though many locals will tell you the truer translation is simply my home.

The town traces its formal roots to eighteen seventy, when a plantation owner named W. C. Hammond donated land along the newly built railroad. But the ground was already storied. Cherokee people had lived and traveled through this country for generations before settlers arrived. Mining followed the railroad, and Attalla incorporated in eighteen seventy-two, growing into a small industrial town at the foot of the Southern Appalachians.