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Site is Available for Adoption
Our goal is to help you track your ancestors through time by
transcribing genealogical and historical data for the free use of all
researchers.
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and are interested in helping this project be as successful as it can
be. If you are interested in joining Genealogy Trails, view our Volunteer Page for further information and then contact Kim.
(Enough
knowledge to make a basic webpage and a desire to transcribe data is
required)
We
hope you will consider contributing your Obits,
Biographies and Pioneer Family History.
Send your contributions to Christina
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We invite you to send us what you find at your
local library. Just transcribe it and email it us. As new data and
information comes in, we'll add it to this page until a permanent
co-ordinator is found. So bookmark us and check back often -- If you
have data of any kind to contribute it would be very welcome.. obits,
biographies, news articles - all are of interest to our researchers.
Autauga
County was
established on November 21, 1818 by an act of Alabama Territorial
Legislature (one year before Alabama was admitted as a State). As
established, the county included present-day Autauga County, as well as
Elmore County and Chilton County. At the time, Autauga (aka, Tawasa)
Indians lived here, primarily in a village named Atagi (meaning "pure
water") situated on the banks of a creek by the same name (called
"Pearl Water Creek" by settlers). Autaugas were members of the Alibamu
tribe. They sent many warriors to resist Andrew Jackson's invasion in
the Creek War. This county was part of the territory ceded by the
Creeks in the Treaty of Fort Jackson in 1814. The first county seat was
at Jackson's Mill, but the court only met there long enough to select a
permanent seat at Washington, built on the former site of Atagi in the
southeast corner of the county. In 1830 the county seat was moved to a
more central location at Kingston and the town of Washington dwindled
until it was completely deserted in the late 1830s.
Daniel Pratt arrived in Autauga County in 1833 and founded the new town
of Prattville, north of Atagi on the fall line of Autauga Creek.
County
Seat - Prattville
His cotton gin factory quickly became the largest manufacturer of gins
in the world and the first major industry in Alabama. It was at his
factory, and with his financial backing, that the Prattville Dragoons,
a fighting unit for the Confederacy was organized in anticipation of
Civil War. Other units formed in Autauga County included the Autauga
Rifles (Autaugaville), The John Steele Guards (western Autauga Co.) and
the Varina Rifles (northern Autauga Co.). None of the fighting of the
Civil War reached Autauga County and Pratt was able to secure payment
of debts from Northern accounts soon after the war, lessening the
disabling effects of the Reconstruction period in the county.
Charles Atwood, a former slave belonging to Daniel Pratt bought a house
in the center of Prattville immediately after emancipation and was one
of the founding investors in Pratt's South and North Railroad.
In 1866 and 1868, Elmore and Chilton counties were split off from
Autauga County, and the county seat was moved to the population center
of Prattville, where a new courthouse was completed by local builder
George L. Smith in 1870. In 1906, a new and larger courthouse was
erected in a modified Richardsonian Romanesque style a block north of
the older one. The building was designed by Bruce Architectural Co. of
Birmingham and built by Dobson & Bynum of Montgomery.
CITIES & TOWNS
Autaugaville
-- Millbrook -- Prattville
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