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Gilbertown, Alabama. Counties or equivalents associated with this area: Choctaw. Associated ZIP codes: 36908.
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An Alabama man has been charged with setting fire to a Mississippi police department that has faced protests in the months since an officer fatally shot a 1-...
Alabama Marine Resources officials say several years of poor water conditions have contributed to a significant decline in oyster numbers. Because of the dec...
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Gilbertown is in Choctaw County, Alabama.
Region: Central Alabama
36908
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An Alabama man has been charged with setting fire to a Mississippi police department that has faced protests in the months since an officer fatally shot a 1-...
Alabama Marine Resources officials say several years of poor water conditions have contributed to a significant decline in oyster numbers. Because of the dec...
Gilbertown is where Alabama's oil industry began. Long before, Choctaw people led by the famed chief Pushmataha crossed the area on their east–west travels, according to a county marker. The town was established in 1910 by the Gilbert Townsite Company, and in 1912 the Alabama, Tennessee and Northern Railroad was built through the area, bringing a bank, a bottling company, a hotel, a drugstore and a blacksmith shop. A grade school and junior high followed in the 1920s, and Alabama Power brought electricity in the 1930s.
On January 2, 1944, the state granted the Hunt Oil Company of Dallas oilman H. L. Hunt a permit to drill the A. R. Jackson Well No. 1 near Gilbertown. Drilling began on January 10, and the well, completed on February 16, 1944, struck oil at 2,580 feet in fractured Selma chalk. It was the first producing oil well in Alabama, and its discovery led to the creation of the State Oil and Gas Board in 1945 and the growth of the state's petroleum industry. After World War II the town built a town hall and fire and police departments. In November 1975 the council issued bonds to create the Gilbertown Water Works, and in 1977 the state opened a Gilbertown campus of Hobson State Technical College, now part of Coastal Alabama Community College. The Choctaw County Historical Museum, home of the county's first log courthouse, is in Gilbertown. Sources The Historical Marker Database: First Oil Well in Alabama (Alabama Historical Association; Bicentennial Commission of Choctaw County) The Historical Marker Database: Indian Trail Crossing Encyclopedia of Alabama: Gilbertown; Butler
31.8666020, -88.3265140
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