Like the rest of Alabama, this had long been occupied by Native Americans; historically the
Muscogee people (Creek) dominated this area. Pickens County was established on the western border of Alabama on December 20, 1820, and named for
revolutionary war hero General
Andrew Pickens of
South Carolina. The county seat was relocated from
Pickensville to
Carrollton in 1830. Less than one-third of the county was developed for cotton plantations, which were worked by enslaved African-Americans brought south by northern businessmen interested in cheap cotton. These plantations were developed primarily in the southernmost reaches of the county, in the lowlands along the banks of the
Tombigbee River and stretching over a small prairie-like area. The rest of the county was settled by yeomen farmers who held few slaves; it was topographically unsuited for plantation-scale farming operations. During the American Civil War, the first courthouse in Carrollton was burned on April 5, 1865, by troops of
Union General
John T. Croxton. Recovering from that and other damage was part of the postwar work for the county. This was the period of
Jim Crow and disenfranchisement of blacks throughout Alabama and the South. Henry Wells, an
African American, was arrested in January 1878 as a suspect in the courthouse arson and a burglary. He was captured in an arrest for the burglary, in which he was shot and wounded. Reportedly confessing to the courthouse arson (likely under coercion), he died five days later of his wounds. A myth associated his death with another lynching of an African-American man in this period, and an image, purportedly of Wells' face in a courthouse window. But while numerous African Americans were lynched in the courthouse square, the windows in the courthouse were not installed until February and March 1878. In the late 19th century, there was strong hostility in Pickens County among yeomen whites against freedmen, and they committed numerous lynchings into the early 20th century. The county was a populist stronghold in the 1890s and many voters had joined the
Farmers Alliance. Agricultural commissioner and populist choice
Reuben F. Kolb was defeated in 1890 for the Democratic nomination for governor by
Thomas G. Jones, chosen by delegates who joined to defeat Kolb. In 1892 both ran again, Kolb representing
Jeffersonian Democrats, and Kolb the main Democratic Party. On August 28, 1907, African-American John Gibson was lynched in Carrollton, hanged to death in the courthouse square. John Lipsep was hanged and shot in early September 1907, a suspect in an attack on a white woman.
20th century to present From 1940 to 1970, many African Americans left Pickens County to escape racial violence and oppression in the
Great Migration to urban areas, as did other rural residents, because of lack of economic opportunity. On April 8, 1998, a supercell thunderstorm produced an
F3 tornado in Pickens County. This windstorm injured two people and damaged five homes including mobile homes. It rotated from Holman to north of Northport. Twenty-four homes and thirteen mobile homes were also in the path of destruction. Moments later, that same supercell thunderstorm produced an F5 tornado that struck northeastern Tuscaloosa near the
Black Warrior River before entering western
Jefferson County where it destroyed
Oak Grove High School and killed thirty-two people in its path. From 2000 to 2013 the county was again losing population. From July 2013 to July 2014, the population grew by 5.1%, making it the fourth-fastest growing county with at least 10,000 inhabitants. In 2014 it became the fastest-growing county in Alabama. But part of the growth was the result of the construction here of the
Federal Correctional Institution, Aliceville federal women's prison. Prisoners are included in local census numbers, as are prison employees, some of whom came from other counties. In 2016, Black disabled veteran Sean Worsley was arrested in Pickens County for possession of prescription medical marijuana by Police Officer Carl Abramo of the Gordo Police Department. Worsley was arrested after stopping at a gas station when Abramo allegedly heard loud music and "observed a black male get out of the passenger side vehicle". In 2020, Mr. Worsley was extradited from his home state in Arizona to Pickens County, where he was sentenced by a judge to 60 months in the custody of the Alabama Department of Corrections. In 2019, Sheriff David Abston resigned as part of a plea deal with federal officials. He pleaded guilty to scamming a local food bank and his own church for food to feed county prisoners. He then was able to pocket the savings. Abston had served in the office for more than thirty years. ==Geography==