Calhoun County, Alabama

Calhoun County is a county in the east central part of the U.S. state of Alabama. As of the 2020 census, the population was 116,441. Its county seat is Anniston. It is named in honor of John C. Calhoun, a US Senator from South Carolina.

Calhoun County comprises the Anniston-Oxford Metropolitan Statistical Area.

History

Benton County was established on December 18, 1832, named for Thomas Hart Benton, a member of the United States Senate from Missouri. Its county seat was Jacksonville. Benton, an enslaver, was a political ally of John C. Calhoun, a U.S. senator from South Carolina, and also a slaveholder and planter. Through the 1820s-1840s, however, Benton's and Calhoun's political interests diverged. Calhoun was increasingly interested in using the threat of secession as a weapon to maintain and expand slavery throughout the United States. Benton, on the other hand, was slowly concluding that slavery was wrong and that the preservation of the union was paramount. On January 29, 1858, Alabama supporters of slavery, objecting to Benton's change of heart, renamed Benton County as Calhoun County.

During the Reconstruction era and widespread violence by whites to suppress black and white Republican voting in the state during the campaign for the 1870 gubernatorial election, four blacks and one white were lynched.

After years of controversy and a State Supreme Court ruling in June 1900, the county seat was moved to Anniston.

The county was hit by an F4 tornado during the 1994 Palm Sunday tornado outbreak on March 27, 1994. Twelve minutes after the National Weather Service of Birmingham issued a tornado warning for northern Calhoun, southeastern Etowah, and southern Cherokee counties, the tornado destroyed Piedmont's Goshen United Methodist Church.

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (1.0%) is water.

Adjacent counties

Cherokee County - northeast
Cleburne County - east
Talladega County - south
St. Clair County - west
Etowah County - northwest

National protected areas

Mountain Longleaf National Wildlife Refuge
Talladega National Forest (part)

Transportation

Major highways

20px Interstate 20
20px U.S. Highway 78
23px U.S. Highway 278
23px U.S. Highway 431
20px State Route 9
20px State Route 21
20px State Route 144
20px State Route 200
21px State Route 202
21px State Route 204
21px State Route 301