Calhoun County, Alabama
| Calhoun County, Alabama | |
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Calhoun County courthouse in Anniston
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 Location in the U.S. state of Alabama |
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 Alabama's location in the U.S. |
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| Founded | December 18, 1832 as Benton County |
| Named for | John C. Calhoun |
| Seat | Anniston |
| Largest city | Anniston |
| Area | |
| • Total | 612 sq mi (1,585 km2) |
| • Land | 606 sq mi (1,570 km2) |
| • Water | 6.4 sq mi (17 km2), 1.0% |
| Population (est.) | |
| • (2015) | 115,620 |
| • Density | 191/sq mi (74/km²) |
| Congressional district | 3rd |
| Time zone | Central: UTC-6/-5 |
| Website | www |
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Footnotes:
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Footnotes:
Calhoun County is a county in the U.S. state of Alabama. As of the 2010 census, the population was 118,572. Its county seat is Anniston. Its name is in honor of John C. Calhoun, famous member of the United States Senate from South Carolina.
Calhoun County is included in the Anniston-Oxford Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Benton County was established on December 18, 1832, named for Thomas Hart Benton, a member of the United States Senate from Missouri, with its county seat at Jacksonville. Benton, a slave owner, was a political ally of John C. Calhoun, another slaveholder and a U.S. senator from South Carolina. Through the 1820s-1840s, however, Benton's and Calhoun's political interests diverged, with Calhoun increasingly using secession as a weapon to maintain and expand slavery throughout the United States. Benton, on the other hand, was slowly coming to the conclusion that slavery was wrong and that 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. In 1870, during widespread terror in the state in the run-up to the 1870 gubernatorial election, four blacks and one white were lynched.
The county seat was moved to Anniston after years of controversy and a State Supreme Court ruling in June 1900. An F4 tornado struck here on Palm Sunday March 27, 1994. It destroyed Piedmont's Goshen United Methodist Church twelve minutes after the National Weather Service of Birmingham issued a tornado warning for northern Calhoun, southeastern Etowah, and southern Cherokee.
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