Falkville: The Storekeeper's Town

Before the railroad arrived, the hollow that would become Falkville was already settled. Tennesseans Malcolm Patterson and James Densmore were among the first, putting down roots here before the Civil War. But it was a later arrival who gave the town its name: Louis Falk, a veteran who opened the first general store and served as the first postmaster.

The Louisville and Nashville Railroad reached Falkville by eighteen seventy-two, establishing a station and opening the area to wider trade. The town was first incorporated in eighteen seventy-six, lapsed, and was chartered again in eighteen eighty-six and once more in eighteen ninety-eight, suggesting it took a few tries to make the civic paperwork stick. Today Falkville is a small Morgan County community in the orbit of Decatur, but its name is a quiet monument to the man behind the counter of the first store.