Fort Payne is a city in and county seat of DeKalb County, in northeastern Alabama, United States. It is near Lookout Mountain. At the 2020 census, the population was 14,877.

This city developed around a fort of the same name, built in the 1830s to intern the Cherokee tribe who were being rounded up by the military before being forcibly removed to Indian Territory in 1838 on what they called the Trail of Tears.

European-American settlers gradually developed a community around the former fort. It grew rapidly in the late 19th century based on industrial resources, and manufacturing increased in the early 20th century. At the beginning of the 21st century, it still had 7000 workers in 100 mills producing varieties of socks, nearly half the world production. The volume of production has declined because of competition from China.

History

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, this was the site of Willstown, an important town of the Lower Cherokee. They had moved south along the Tennessee River and into what became Alabama in an effort to escape European-American pressure.

For a time this was the home of Sequoyah, a silversmith who by 1821 created the Cherokee syllabary, one of the few writing systems created by an individual from a pre-literate culture. In Alabama, his people soon started publishing the first newspaper in Cherokee and English, The Cherokee Phoenix.

During the 1830s prior to Indian removal, the US Army under command of Major John Payne built a fort near Willstown to intern Cherokee from Alabama until they were forcibly removed to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). Their forced exile became known as the Trail of Tears. Only a chimney of Fort Payne still stands in the downtown of the city that developed around it.

19th–20th century growth

thumb|The DeKalb Hotel, built in the Boom in 1889, burned 1918

Although European Americans had pressed for Indian removal in the Southeast because they wanted land to cultivate, by the 1860s, the city of Fort Payne and the surrounding area were only sparsely settled. Development of cotton plantations and larger settlements had taken place in the uplands region known as the Black Belt. With no strategic targets nearby, during the Civil War only minor skirmishes between Union and Confederate forces took place here. About the time of the Second Battle of Chattanooga, a large Union force briefly entered the county, but it did not engage substantial Confederate forces.

In 1878 the city Fort Payne was designated as the county seat, and in 1889 it was incorporated as a town. The community of Lebanon had served as the DeKalb county seat since 1850. With the completion of rail lines between Birmingham and Chattanooga that went through Fort Payne, the city's growth was stimulated by connection to this new transportation route. County sentiment had supported having the seat in a community served by the railroad, seen as key to the future.

The iron and coal deposits were much smaller than expected. Many of the promoters left the region for Birmingham, Alabama, which became the state's major industrial city. Fort Payne suffered a period of economic decline. In 1907, the W.B. Davis Hosiery Mill began operations, processing area cotton to produce socks and hosiery. Hosiery manufacture has led the economy in Fort Payne. At the beginning of the 21st century, the hosiery industry in Fort Payne employed over 7,000 people in more than 100 mills. It produced more than half of the socks made in the United States and claimed to be the "Sock Capital of the World."

Beginning in the 1990s, the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Central American Free Trade Agreement lowered tariffs on textile products imported into the United States, resulting in large increases in sock imports. By the early 2000s a very large, highly-efficient center for sock production had grown up around Datang, Zhuji in Zhejiang Province, China. Raw materials and hosiery machines were also manufactured at Datang. While in Fort Payne a company might have to wait two months for a replacement part for a hosiery machine to arrive from Italy, a manufacturer in Datang would have to wait half an hour for the part to arrive from a local company.

American multinational retail corporations began to source hosiery products from Datang. The American companies’ strict negotiating positions required the Datang producers to accept as little as 3% profit. As American retail corporations began to source their products from China, Datang became the new "Sock Capital of the World." Many businesses in Fort Payne accused foreign manufacturers, particularly those from China, of engaging in dumping of socks below cost to force American companies out of the sock business. By 2005, hosiery mill employment in Fort Payne had declined to around 5,500, and several mills had closed. In late 2005, the federal government gained an agreement with the Chinese government to slow the schedule for the removal of tariffs, delaying their full removal until 2008. The hosiery industry continues to have a foothold in the community, diversifying from athletic socks to boutique designs such as Zkano, and other specialty and medical socks.

In the 1990s, facing the international threat to their manufacturing, business and civic leaders in Fort Payne began to take steps to diversify the city's economy. Several new commercial and industrial projects were developed. The largest was the 2006 construction of a distribution center for The Children's Place stores, a facility that employed 600 people in its first phase of operation.

Other large corporations represented in Fort Payne include Heil Environmental Industries (a division of Dover Industries, manufacturing sanitation trucks); Vulcraft (a division of Nucor Corporation, manufacturing steel roofing systems); and Game Time (a division of Playcore, manufacturing commercial playground equipment).

Geography

thumb|right|Aerial view of Fort Payne

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and , or 0.64%, is water.

The city center lies in a narrow valley on Big Wills Creek in the Cumberland Plateau region immediately west of Lookout Mountain, with Sand Mountain at a distance to the west. The city limits reach to the east and south so that more than half of the city's area is now located on Lookout Mountain. Drainage is through Big Wills Creek to the Coosa River.

A magnitude 4.9 earthquake occurred here in 2003.

Climate

Fort Payne is notable for a subtropical climate. Winters usually feature measurable, though infrequent, snow. Cloudmont Ski Resort on Lookout Mountain generates man-made snow as winter temperatures permit. The area is subject to occasional tornadoes. The city's northern side was struck by F3 and F4 tornadoes February 29, 1952 and May 19, 1973, respectively, both of which caused considerable damage. Exactly ten years later, a tornado struck the city again. In the Palm Sunday tornado outbreak of 1994, an F3 tornado passed just west of the city

Occasionally, a hurricane that has made landfall in the Gulf of Mexico will reach Fort Payne as a tropical storm or tropical depression. However, in 1995 the eye of Hurricane Opal reached Fort Payne with hurricane-force winds. The 1993 Storm of the Century dumped more than of snow on Fort Payne, immobilizing the city and the surrounding area for days. The Köppen Climate Classification subtype for this climate is "Cfa". (Humid Subtropical Climate).

Demographics

2020 census

As of the 2020 census, Fort Payne had a population of 14,877 and 5,472 households; 3,219 families resided in the city.

There were 5,472 households in Fort Payne, of which 35.6% had children under the age of 18 living in them. Of all households, 46.9% were married-couple households, 17.5% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 30.5% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 29.0% of all households were made up of individuals and 14.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.

! Race !! Number !! Percent

|-

| White || 10,192 || 68.5%

|-

| Black or African American || 508 || 3.4%

|-

| American Indian and Alaska Native || 927 || 6.2%

|-

| Asian || 122 || 0.8%

|-

| Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander || 7 || 0.0%

|-

| Some other race || 2,108 || 14.2%

|-

| Two or more races || 1,013 || 6.8%

|-

| Hispanic or Latino (of any race) || 3,665 || 24.6%

|}

2010 census

Fort Payne had at the 2010 census a population of 14,012. There were 5,296 households. The racial makeup of the population was 72.0% non-Hispanic white, 4.2% black or African American, 0.9% Native American, 0.8% Asian, 0.2% Pacific Islander, 0.1% non-Hispanic from some other race, 2.5% reporting two or more races and 20.9% Hispanic or Latino of any race.

2000 census

As of the census of 2000, there were 12,938 people, 5,046 households, and 3,506 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 5,585 housing units at an average density of

The racial makeup of the city was 83.22% White, 4.53% Black or African American, 0.80% Native American, 0.55% Asian, 0.16% Pacific Islander, 8.41% from other races, and 2.33% from two or more races. 12.17% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

Media

  • Radio stations
  • WFPA-AM 1400 (News/Talk)
  • WZOB-AM 1250 (Country)
  • Newspapers
  • The Times-Journal
  • The Dekalb Advertiser
  • Southern Torch

Infrastructure

Health care

  • DeKalb Regional Medical Center- 134-bed facility

Transportation

  • 25px Interstate 59
  • 25px U.S. Highway 11
  • 25px Alabama State Route 35
  • Norfolk Southern Railway
  • 25px Isbell Field (municipal airport)

Notable people

  • Miles C. Allgood (1878–1977), U.S. congressman
  • Mark E. Biddle, Old Testament scholar
  • Harry B. Brock, Jr., banker and philanthropist
  • Weston Burt, country music singer
  • David Brown (translator), Cherokee interpreter and missionary
  • Jeff Cook, Teddy Gentry, and Randy Owen, founders of the country music band Alabama
  • Thomas H. Cook, mystery writer
  • Lt. Gen. Duward Crow (1919–1997), Assistant Vice Chief of Staff, USAF and Associate Deputy Administrator, NASA
  • James Dean, author, artist (Pete the Cat)
  • Jerry Ellis, author
  • Howard Finster, religious folk artist and Baptist minister
  • Flock Family (NASCAR drivers)
  • Bob Flock (1918–1964)
  • Fonty Flock (1921–1972)
  • Tim Flock (1924–1998)
  • Ethel Mobley (1920–1984)
  • Milford W. Howard, congressman and author
  • Sheila LaBarre, convicted murderer
  • Lt. Gen. Forrest S. McCartney, USAF, and director of the John F. Kennedy Space Center
  • James McKinney, 5-string banjo player
  • Evan McPherson, NFL player
  • Larry Nelson, professional golfer
  • Philip Ober, actor
  • Lilius Bratton Rainey, congressman
  • Ron Sparks, Alabama Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries, 2010 Democratic gubernatorial nominee
  • Edward Stinson, aviator and founder of the Stinson Aircraft Company
  • Katherine Stinson, pioneer aviator, fourth woman in the U.S. to become a licensed pilot; sister of Edward Stinson

Local facts

For a time beginning in 1989, Fort Payne held the world record for "Largest Cake Ever Baked", for a cake of baked to commemorate the city's centennial.

References

  • City of Fort Payne official website