Huntsville is a city centrally located in the northernmost part of the U.S. state of Alabama. It is located in Madison county and extends west into neighboring Limestone county. Huntsville is the county seat of Madison county, and the fourth largest city in Alabama. The 2000 census estimated Huntsville's population at 158,216, while in 2008, the estimated population grew to 176,645. The Huntsville Metropolitan Area's population was estimated at 395,645. Huntsville is the largest city in the four-county Huntsville-Decatur Combined Statistical Area, which in 2008 had a total population of 545,770.
Originally settled by John Hunt in 1805, the city was incorporated six years later as Twickenham. However, it was renamed "Huntsville" during the War of 1812 and it has grown across nearby hills and along the Tennessee River, adding textile mills, then munitions factories, to become a major city, including NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and the United States Army Aviation and Missile Command nearby at the Redstone Arsenal.
History
First settlers
Huntsville is named after Revolutionary War veteran John Hunt, the first settler of the land around the Big Spring. However, Hunt did not properly register his claim, and the area was purchased by Leroy Pope, who imposed the name Twickenham on the area to honor the home village of his distant kinsman Alexander Pope.
Twickenham was carefully planned, with streets laid out on the northeast to southwest direction based on the Big Spring ( see images below ). However, due to anti-English sentiment during the War of 1812, the name was changed to Huntsville to honor John Hunt, who had been forced to move to other land south of the new city.
Both John Hunt and Leroy Pope were Freemasons and charter members of Helion Lodge #1.
Incorporation 1811
In 1811, Huntsville became the first incorporated town in Alabama. However, the recognized "birth" year of the city is 1805, the year of John Hunt's arrival. The city's sesquicentennial anniversary was held in 1955 and the bicentennial was celebrated in 2005.
Emerging industries
Huntsville's quick growth was from wealth generated by the cotton and railroad industries. Many wealthy planters moved into the area from Virginia, Georgia, and the Carolinas. In 1819, Huntsville hosted a constitutional convention in Walker Allen's large cabinetmaking shop. The forty-four delegates meeting there wrote a constitution for the new state of Alabama. In accordance with the new state constitution, Huntsville became Alabama's first capital when the state was admitted to the Union. This was a temporary designation for one legislative session only, and the capital was then moved to another temporary location, Cahawba, until the legislature selected a permanent capital. (Today, the capital is Montgomery.)
In 1855, the Memphis and Charleston Railroad was constructed through Huntsville, becoming the first railway to link the Atlantic seacoast with the lower Mississippi River.
Civil War
Huntsville initially opposed secession from the Union in 1861, but provided many men for the state's defense. The 4th Alabama Infantry Regiment, led by Col. Egbert J. Jones of Huntsville, distinguished itself at the Battle of Manassas/Bull Run, the first major encounter of the American Civil War. The Fourth Alabama Infantry, which contained two Huntsville companies, were the first Alabama troops to fight in the war and were present when Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox in April 1865. Eight generals of the war were born in or near Huntsville, evenly split with four on each side.
On the morning of April 11, 1862, Union troops led by General Ormsby M. Mitchel seized Huntsville to sever the Confederacy's rail communications. The Union troops were forced to retreat some months later, but returned to Huntsville in the fall of 1863 and thereafter used the city as a base of operations for the remainder of the war. While many homes and villages in the surrounding countryside were burned in retaliation for the active guerrilla warfare in the area, Huntsville itself was spared because it housed elements of the Union Army.
After the Civil War
After the Civil War, Huntsville became a center for cotton textile mills, such as Lincoln, Dallas and Merrimack. Each mill had its own housing community that included everything the mill workers needed (schools, churches, grocery stores, theatres, and hardware stores, all within walking distance of the mill).
Great Depression 1930s
During the 1930s, industry declined in Huntsville due to the Great Depression. Huntsville became known as the Watercress Capital of the World because of its abundant harvest in the area. Madison County led Alabama in cotton production during this time.
World War II
By 1940, Huntsville was still a small quiet town with a population of only 13,150 inhabitants. This quickly changed at the onset of World War II, when Huntsville was chosen as the location of Huntsville Arsenal, with chemical and munitions manufacturing plants. The Arsenal was almost closed in 1949 when it was no longer needed, but it saw new life when Major General Holger Toftoy with support from Senator John Sparkman convinced the U.S. Army to choose Huntsville as the location for its missile research program. In 1950, General Toftoy brought German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and his colleagues to Redstone Arsenal to develop what would eventually become the United States' space program.
Space flight
On September 8, 1960, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally dedicated the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. (NASA had already activated this facility, which is located on Redstone Arsenal, on July 1 of that year.)
The city is nicknamed " The Rocket City " for its close history with U.S. space missions. Huntsville has been important in developing space technology since the 1950s, when the German scientists headed by Dr. Wernher von Braun, brought to the United States at the end of World War II through Operation Paperclip, arrived to develop rocketry for the U.S. Army. Their work included designing the Redstone ballistic missile, a variant of which, the Juno I, carried the first U.S. satellite and astronauts into space.
The Saturn V, used by the Apollo program manned Moon missions, was developed at Redstone Arsenal. Huntsville continues to play an important role in the United States' Space Shuttle and International Space Station programs. It is estimated that 1 in 13 of Huntsville's population are employed in some engineering field of work.
Huntsville's economy was nearly crippled and growth came to a near standstill in the 1970s following the closure of the Apollo program, but the emergence of the Space Shuttle and the ever-expanding field of missile defense in the 1980s helped give Huntsville a resurgence that continues to this day. The city remains to the center of rocket-propulsion research in the United States, and is home to large branches of many defense contractors. Huntsville is also the location of the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM).
Geography
Huntsville is located at 34°42′N 86°35′W / 34.7°N 86.583°W / 34.7; -86.583 (34.7, -86.6). As of April 2008, the city now has a total area of 202 square miles (520 km 2 ). Recent annexations have pushed the city limits to a total of 9 miles inside Limestone County, bordering Athens and Decatur.
Huntsville is located in the Tennessee River valley. Several plateaus and large hills partially surround the city. These plateaus are associated with the Cumberland Plateau, and are locally called "mountains". Monte Sano Mountain (Italian for "Healthy Mount") is the most notable, and is east of the city along with Round Top (Burritt), Chapman, Huntsville, and Green Mountains. Others are Wade Mountain to the north, Rainbow Mountain to the west, and Weeden and Madkin Mountains on Redstone Arsenal in the south. Brindlee Mountain is visible in the south across the Tennessee River.
As with other areas along the Cumberland Plateau, the l
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