Dothan, AL news and local guide

The town grew after the war, and on November 10, 1885, according to two city markers (Wikipedia gives November 11), residents voted to incorporate. Because another Alabama town already had a similar name, they chose Dothan, from Genesis 37:17, "for I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan." One marker says postal officials had already assigned the name Dothan to a local post office in 1858, and early documents spell it both Dothen and Dothan. On October 12, 1889, a dispute over a city tax on wagons led to a riot between police and members of the Farmers Alliance that left two men dead. In 1893 Dothan won a stop on the region's first railroad, and the pine forests were cut for turpentine and lumber and replaced by cotton fields. When the boll weevil destroyed the cotton in the early 1900s, farmers turned to peanuts, and Dothan became a hub of the peanut trade; today about a quarter of the U.S. peanut crop is grown within 75 miles of the city. Later in the 20th century textile and agricultural businesses were joined by manufacturing plants for companies including Sony, Michelin and General Electric. Sources The Historical Marker Database: The Founding of Dothan, Alabama (Alabama Tourism Department and the City of Dothan) The Historical Marker Database: The Naming of Dothan (Historic Chattahoochee Commission and others) Wikipedia: Dothan, Alabama