Livingston, Alabama: Born from a Treaty and a River

Livingston sits in Sumter County, deep in Alabama's Black Belt, and its founding reaches back to one of the most consequential land cessions in American history. In eighteen thirty, the Choctaw Nation signed the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, giving up their remaining lands in Alabama and Mississippi in exchange for promises of territory farther west. Settlers moved in quickly, and in eighteen thirty-two the Alabama legislature carved out Sumter County from those former Choctaw lands.

Livingston was chosen as the county seat and named for Edward Livingston, a New York-born statesman who served as Andrew Jackson's Secretary of State. The first courthouse was a log structure at the corner of Spring and Chapman Streets. The county itself was named for Revolutionary War hero Thomas Sumter of South Carolina.

Livingston has been the legal and civic center of Sumter County ever since.