Clanton, AL news and local guide

Clanton, the seat of Chilton County, sits near the geographic center of Alabama, halfway between Birmingham and Montgomery. The area was known as Goose Pond, with a nearby settlement called Ranch, and the city's marker says Alfred Baker Sr. founded Goose Pond in 1867. Baker County, later renamed Chilton, was created on December 30, 1868. In early 1871, as the legislature arranged a vote on a permanent courthouse site, the proposed name was changed from "Baker's" to "Clanton," after the South and North Alabama Railroad's Clanton Station, named for James H. Clanton, a former Confederate general and chairman of the state Democratic committee. In May 1871 the post office was renamed Clanton, and the town was incorporated on April 23, 1873, with Alfred Baker as its first mayor.

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Nearby Lay Dam was Alabama Power's first dam in the state, and with Mitchell Dam, built a few years later, it brought economic growth. Immigrants helped start Chilton County's peach industry more than a century ago, and peaches are now its leading industry. In 1993 the city built a 120-foot water tower shaped like a peach beside Interstate 65, and a peach festival is held downtown each June. Clanton also appears in the history of the anti-lynching movement: Ida B. Wells reproduced a photograph postcard of an 1891 lynching in Clanton to expose such crimes to the white public. Sources Wikipedia: Clanton, Alabama The Historical Marker Database: City of Clanton (Alabama Tourism Department and the City of Clanton)