Hartselle: Born in a Boxcar

Hartselle owes its existence entirely to a railroad. In eighteen sixty-nine the South and North Alabama Railroad, later absorbed by the Louisville and Nashville line, pushed through Morgan County to link the mineral districts of the south with the shipping corridors of the north.

The town that grew up around the new depot was named after an early pioneer in the area, George Hartsell. The first depot building was a converted boxcar. Hartselle was incorporated in eighteen seventy-five, and within a few years it had become a busy shipping point for timber and agricultural goods moving in and out of north-central Alabama. The name shed one letter along the way, so the man was Hartsell and the town became Hartselle, the extra E now part of its permanent identity.