Montgomery County


The first State Capitol in Montgomery was built State Capitol BuildingLocated in the south-central part of the state, Montgomery County is the seat of state government. The city of Montgomery, now the state capital, is often referred to as the Cradle of the Confederacy because the city briefly served as the first capital of the Confederate States of America in 1861. In the mid-twentieth century, Montgomery became the birthplace of the nation's civil-rights movement when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a city bus. Montgomery County emerged from an antebellum economy reliant upon cotton to a modern diversified economy that now includes the automotive industry and major military bases. Montgomery County is governed by an elected five-member commission and includes two incorporated communities.

· Founding Date: December 6, 1816
· Area: 793 square miles
· Population: 223,571 (2006 Census Bureau estimate)
· Major Waterways: Alabama River, Tallapoosa River
· Major Highways: I-65, I-85, U.S. Highways 31, 231, 331, 80, and 82
· County Seat: Montgomery
· Largest City: Montgomery

History 

Montgomery County was created by an act of the Mississippi Territorial Legislature on December 6, 1816. The county was named in honor of Maj. Lemuel Montgomery of Tennessee, who was the first U.S. soldier killed in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. The city of Montgomery is the county seat and was selected as the state's permanent capital in 1846. The county was carved out of Monroe County and originally encompassed a majority of central Alabama. It was later subdivided into Elmore, Bullock, and Crenshaw counties. The act that created Montgomery County provided that its courts were to meet initially at Fort Jackson, located at the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers and site of the surrender of the Creek Indians to Gen. Andrew Jackson, in present-day Elmore County. Andrew Dexter (1779-1837) was one of the founders Andrew DexterThe courts met there only until June 1818, after which they met in nearby Alabama Town, founded by Gen. John Scott, who with several other migrants from Georgia founded the town on the bluff of the Alabama River. The men abandoned it when a group from New England, led by Andrew Dexter, founded a nearby town in what is now the downtown area of Montgomery and named it New Philadelphia. Scott and his companions then built a new town they called East Alabama. Seeing themselves as rivals, the citizens of East Alabama contemptuously referred to New Philadelphia as Yankee Town. The bitter rivalry ended, however, when the towns merged on December 3, 1819, and incorporated as the city of Montgomery, just prior to Alabama being admitted as a state.

Richard Montgomery (1736-1775) was a general in the Richard MontgomeryThe city of Montgomery prospered and became the county seat in 1822 and Alabama's permanent capital in 1846. Although it bears the same name as the county, the city was named in honor of a different person, Maj. Gen. Richard Montgomery, who lost his life in the Revolutionary War in the assault against Quebec. The city and the county of Montgomery have been the site of many firsts, with the distinction of being known as the birthplace of the both the Civil War and the civil-rights movement. On February 18, 1861, Jefferson Davis was sworn in as the president of the Confederate States of America in its initial capital of Montgomery. It was from Montgomery that a telegram was sent to authorize the bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, thus commencing the Rosa Parks is shown here during a symbolic Rosa Parks's Symbolic Bus Ride, 1956Civil War. Ninety-four years later, on December 1, 1955, Montgomery played host to a defining event in the birth of the civil-rights movement when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery city bus. Ten years later Martin Luther King Jr. ended the Selma-to-Montgomery March for voting rights with a speech delivered from the state capitol grounds. Technological firsts were also achieved in Montgomery County. In 1886, the nation's first electric streetcar system was put into operation in Montgomery, and in 1910 the Wright Brothers founded the first flight school for aviators at a site near the Alabama River that would later become Maxwell Air Force Base. Orville Wright recorded the first powered flight The Wright Brothers founded the country's first flight Wright's Fieldin Alabama's history, the local press reporting that "a strange new bird soared over the cotton fields to the west of Montgomery, on March 26, 1910." This site later became an aviation repair depot and eventually evolved into a full-scale air base that today is home to Air University, the U.S. Air Force's center for professional military education.

Major Cities and Demographics 

Currently Alabama's fourth most populous county, Montgomery County in 2006 had an estimated population of 223,571. According to U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the county's population was 52.5 percent African American, 45.1 percent White, 1.4 percent Hispanic, 1.2 percent Asian, and 0.2 percent Native American. The county's median household income in 2003 was $35,523, slightly below the median income for the state of $36,131. The per capita income was $19,385 in 1999 as compared with $18,189 for the state as a whole. The city of Montgomery, the largest city within the county with an estimated population of 201,998 in 2006, serves as the county seat and the state capital. The city of Montgomery remained the sole municipality in the county until the Town of Pike Road incorporated in 1997, with an estimated population of only 303 in 2006. Other communities in the county include Boylston, Hope Hull, La Pine, Mitylene, Mount Meigs, Pine Level, Pintlala, Naftel, Ramer, Sellers, Snowdoun, Sprague, and Waugh.

Economy 

Court Square was created when the towns of Cotton in Court SquareThe advent of the steamboat, the relocation of the state capital from Tuscaloosa, and the cotton trade spurred Montgomery County's antebellum economy. From the county's earliest days, cotton production was its most important local industry, with the first commercial cotton gin having been installed in the area at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Montgomery soon became an important port for shipping cotton from the region. In 1844 Henry Lehman, an immigrant from Germany, was lured by the potential of this economy and opened a small general store in the city of Montgomery. Six years later, brothers Emanuel and Mayer joined him, and they named the business Lehman Brothers. The Civil War disrupted the Lehmans' business. When the war ended, the brothers moved north and concentrated their operations in New York, where they helped establish the Cotton Exchange. Their thriving business subsequently evolved into today's global financial entity. Other businesses suffered from the effects of the Civil War, but the county's economy began to rebound with the growth of the textile industry and the diversification of agricultural industries. Montgomery became, and still is, an important processing and shipping center for cotton, dairy, and other farm products.

As Montgomery County progressed into the twentieth century, its economy was more and more influenced, strengthened, and given stability by the presence of local, state, and federal government in the capital city. These combined governmental entities provide jobs to almost 25 percent of the work force. According to the 2000 Census, the workforce in Montgomery County is made up of the following occupations: 36.6 percent management and professional; 29 percent in sales and office; 15.7 in the service industry; 11.6 percent in production, transportation, and material moving; 6.9 percent in construction, extraction, and material moving; and 0.2 percent in farming, fishing, and forestry. The county's single leading employer is Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base, which provides approximately 12,700 jobs. Korean-owned Hyundai Motor Company recently constructed a $1.1 billion automotive assembly and manufacturing Maxwell Air Force Base began as Engine and Maxwell Air Force Baseplant just south of the city of Montgomery, bringing another 2,700 jobs to the county. Other leading employers include the state of Alabama, Baptist Health System, Montgomery Public Schools, ALFA Insurance Companies, the city of Montgomery, Jackson Hospital and Clinic, and Rheem Manufacturing Company.

The Montgomery Public School System consists of all public schools in Montgomery County. There are approximately 33,500 students in the county's 35 elementary schools, 11 junior/middle schools, and eight high schools. The system currently employs approximately 4,000 teachers, administrators, and support personnel. It is estimated that about 17 percent of school-age children in Montgomery County attend private schools. Montgomery County is also home to a number of institutions of higher education, including Alabama State University, a historically black institution founded in 1867 by Huntingdon College is a Methodist-affiliated liberal-arts college located Huntingdon Collegeformer slaves in Marion, Perry County, and relocated to Montgomery in 1887; Auburn University at Montgomery (AUM), a metropolitan campus of Auburn University created by the Alabama Legislature in 1967; Huntingdon College, a Methodist-affiliated liberal-arts college founded in 1854 in Tuskegee, Alabama, and relocated to Montgomery in 1910; Faulkner University, a Christian liberal-arts school founded in 1942 and formerly known as Alabama Christian College; and Jones School of Law, founded in 1928 by jurist Walter B. Jones (son of Alabama governor Thomas Goode Jones) and now associated with Faulkner University.

Geography 

Montgomery County is 22nd in size among Alabama Montgomery County MapMontgomery County is located in the south-central part of the state within the Coastal Plain physiographic section and encompasses 793 square miles. The Alabama and Tallapoosa Rivers form its northern boundaries with Autauga and Elmore counties. It is bounded on the east by Macon and Bullock counties, on the south by Pike and Crenshaw counties, and on the west by Lowndes County.

Montgomery County's main transportation routes are Interstate Highway I-65, which runs north-south, and I-85, which runs east-west. Other routes in the county include U.S. Highways 31, 231, 331, 80, and 82. All of the county's major transportation routes run through the city of Montgomery. Montgomery Regional Airport, located six miles southwest of the city of Montgomery, supports four domestic air carriers and provides facilities for the Alabama Army and Air National Guard.

Events and Places of Interest 

Now a museum, the first White House of First White House of the ConfederacyThere are many recreational and cultural activities to be enjoyed within Montgomery County. The city of Montgomery has 19 city parks that cover more than 400 acres. Lagoon Park Golf Course is a par-72 championship course that is open year-round. Montgomery's Riverwalk Stadium is home to the Montgomery Biscuits, a Southern League affiliate of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays baseball team.

The Civil War and the civil-rights movement provide many sites for tourists, from the First White House of the Confederacy to the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church. Both Jefferson Davis and Martin Luther King Jr. gave historic speeches from the front of the state capitol building. Other sites of interest in the county include museums dedicated to such diverse figures as Hank Williams Sr., Rosa Parks, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Montgomery County is also home to the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, which draws more than 300,000 visitors annually An exhibit of a city bus from 1950s, Rosa Parks Library and Museumfrom all over the world. The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts is located next to the Shakespeare Festival within the Winton M. Blount Cultural Park and contains paintings from such artists as Rembrandt, Goya, and John Singer Sargent. The Montgomery Zoo features animals from all of the world's continents and also includes a miniature train, a playground, and dining facilities.

Additional Resources 

Blue, M. P. A Brief History of Montgomery. Montgomery, Ala.: T.C. Bingham & Co., 1878.

Williams, Clanton W. The Early History of Montgomery and Incidentally of the State of Alabama. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1976.

Herbert J. "Jim" Lewis
Birmingham, Alabama


Published August 31, 2007
Last updated December 10, 2009