Vance: Stagecoach Stop to Mercedes Factory

Long before it had its current name, Vance was a place called Trion, a stagecoach stop and trading post on the old Huntsville Road dating back to before eighteen thirty. A post office arrived in eighteen forty-nine. The community was renamed Smallwood in eighteen seventy-two for a local sawmill owner, then renamed again in eighteen seventy-nine for a physician named William Vance who had relocated from North Carolina. The Alabama Great Southern Railroad came through in eighteen seventy-three, ending the stagecoach era for good.

For most of the twentieth century Vance was simply a quiet Tuscaloosa County community. Then in nineteen ninety-three Mercedes-Benz announced it would build its first American manufacturing plant here. The facility opened in nineteen ninety-seven and quickly became one of the largest employers in the state, producing sport utility vehicles and eventually employing around five thousand workers. A stagecoach stop and a German automobile factory share the same piece of ground.