Opelika: The Creek Word That Stuck

The name Opelika comes from two Creek words: opilwa, meaning swamp, and lako, meaning big. The land opened to white settlement in eighteen thirty-two when the Treaty of Cusseta forced the Creek Nation to surrender all territory east of the Mississippi. Settlers arrived, but the older Creek place name refused to disappear.

The town's real growth came when the railroad arrived in the late eighteen forties. Within a decade Opelika was chartered as a town on February ninth, eighteen fifty-four, and it quickly became a rail hub for Lee County. Today the city sits just a few miles west of Auburn University, and the two communities have grown together economically while staying distinct in identity, a railroad town and a college town sharing the same corner of east Alabama.