A small creek named Big Nance Creek runs through the town. The creek was named for a
Cherokee chief who lived in the area when the first European settlers arrived. The current town is reportedly located on the site of the Native American village. Courtland began as a small settlement known as Ebenezer in the early 1800s. Its early settlers were wealthy planters mostly from
Virginia,
Tennessee, the
Carolinas and
Georgia. It was presently named for the federal courthouse and land office there. In 1818, a group known as the Courtland Land Company bought the land on which the town is now situated and subdivided it into lots. The town was incorporated on December 13, 1819, by the
Alabama territorial legislature One of the South's earliest railroads, the
Tuscumbia, Courtland and Decatur Railroad, was organized at Courtland in 1831, and chartered the following year. The railroad's organizers routed the railroad to bypass the dangerous shoals along the
Tennessee River to the north. The railroad was absorbed by the
Memphis and Charleston Railroad in the 1850s, and later became part of the
Southern Railway. In 1944 and 1945, during
World War II, Courtland was home to the Courtland Army Airfield (Courtland AAF). It was dismantled after the war and given to the city of Courtland, which now operates it as
Courtland Airport.
Courtland Historic District In the early 1990s, more than 100 buildings in Courtland were listed on the
National Register of Historic Places as the Courtland Historic District. Most of the buildings in the district date from the 1830s through the 1930s, and architectural styles include
Federal,
Italianate,
Victorian,
Colonial Revival, and
Neoclassical. The Town Square was part of the town's original 1818-1819 plan. Many of the commercial buildings facing the square, especially along College Street and Tennessee Street, were built in the 1890s and early 1900s. The train depot on the south side of the square, now a community center, was built in the late 1880s. The Old Sherrod Hotel, located at the northwest corner of Tennessee Street and Alabama Street, was built around 1930, and provided housing for early
Tennessee Valley Authority employees. The
John McMahon House, a Federal-style home built around 1830, is listed individually on the
National Register of Historic Places.
Rocky Hill Castle was a
forced-labor plantation whose architecturally renowned plantation house was demolished in 1961. ==Geography==