Randolph County, Alabama
| Randolph County, Alabama | ||
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County courthouse in Wedowee
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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 | |
| Named for | John Randolph of Roanoke | |
| Seat | Wedowee | |
| Largest city | Roanoke | |
| Area | ||
| • Total | 584 sq mi (1,513 km2) | |
| • Land | 581 sq mi (1,505 km2) | |
| • Water | 3.6 sq mi (9 km2), 0.56% | |
| Population (est.) | ||
| • (2015) | 22,696 | |
| • Density | 39/sq mi (15/km²) | |
| Congressional district | 3rd | |
| Time zone | Central: UTC-6/-5 | |
| Website | randolphcountyalabama |
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Footnotes:
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Footnotes:
Randolph County is a county on the central eastern border of the U.S. state of Alabama. As of the 2010 census, the population was 22,913. Its county seat is Wedowee. Its name is in honor of John Randolph, a member of the United States Senate from Virginia. Randolph County was a prohibition or dry county until 2012 when the citizens of Randolph County voted to repeal prohibition.
Randolph County was established by the Alabama Legislature on December 18, 1832, following Indian Removal of the Creek people. It was named in honor of John Randolph, a well-known Virginia congressman. Randolph County was one of several counties created out of the last Creek cession formulated by the Treaty of Cusseta, on March 24, 1832. It lies within the Piedmont region, which extends from Alabama to Pennsylvania.
The first European-American settlers noted that the county was ideally located between three major cities of Atlanta, Birmingham and Montgomery. They said that the county had an abundance of the "purest and coldest freestone water in the world." The area was also noted for its gentle rolling hills. The first county seat for Randolph County was established in 1833 at Hedgeman Triplett's Ferry on the west bank of the Big Tallapoosa River, about 10 miles (16 km) west of Wedowee, Alabama.
In 1835 (2 years later), the county seat was moved by the commissioners to nearby Wedowee. This city lies in the center of Randolph County, on a fork of the Little Tallapoosa River. Wedowee was named after a Creek tribal chief "Wah-wah-nee" (or "Wah-dow-wee") whose village stood near the present site of the town. The county was developed for agriculture, specifically cotton plantations, which were worked by African-American slaves brought by migrants to the region or transported during the domestic slave trade. It was part of what was known as the Black Belt of Alabama, an area of plantation development in the uplands, where short-staple cotton was cultivated. In 2010 some 20 percent of the population was African American, reflecting this history of agriculture based on slavery.
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