Coats Bend, AL

Coats Bend is an Etowah County community named for Gideon E. Coats, who was farming near Turkeytown by 1838. A two-story plantation house he built still stands along the Appalachian Highway, giving the bend a visible landmark from the same family story. The post office operated from 1878 to 1903, and the place is now counted as a census-designated place, not an incorporated town. Coats Bend is the kind of Alabama place whose name, old house, and postal history all point back to one stretch of river country.