Altoona, AL

Altoona is an Etowah County town spread through the Murphree Valley at the foot of Altoona Mountain, with Straight Mountain cutting through the local view. It began as a coal-mining town in 1900, named by miners who had come from Altoona, Pennsylvania. The mines and the Louisville and Nashville Railroad's Mineral Line helped the town boom, bringing banks, a post office, and more than 2,000 residents by 1916. Part of Altoona reaches west into Blount County, so the town's map crosses a county line as well as a mountain valley.

Mining no longer drives Altoona's week, but the old pattern remains in the streets, ridges, and road connections. Gadsden is the larger regional center, while Sand Mountain and the surrounding Etowah–Blount landscape provide the farm, work, and school network around town. The post office dates to the same year as the mines, a small detail that says a lot about how quickly Altoona became a place with its own name and services. The town reads as a former company-era settlement that kept its valley address after the coal boom passed.