Cuba, AL

Cuba is a town in southwest Sumter County, Alabama, just east of the Alabama-Mississippi line in the Black Belt. The 2020 census counted 306 people. A post office named Cuba existed near the present town by 1850; in 1852, R. A. Clay moved from Autauga County with his family and approximately 100 enslaved people, bought the land that became the town, and established a cotton plantation. Clay donated land for the Southern Railroad in 1861, and the settlement that grew around the line became Cuba Station before the shorter name took hold.

ATTRformulanone from Huntsville, United States / CC BY-SA 2.0

Railroad growth filled out the town after the Civil War. By 1900, Cuba had hotels, a newspaper, livery stable, churches, pottery plants, doctors' offices, a school, and a canning factory. Today Interstate 20/59 cuts through the northwest corner, State Highway 8 bisects the town, U.S. 11 and Alabama 7 run through the southern half, and Norfolk Southern still operates a line through Cuba. Sumter County schools serve the area, while the Ward-Ganguet-Gray House and the Dr. H. B. Ward House keep older architecture visible. The local scoop is a Black Belt railroad town whose present roads still trace the cotton, rail, and commercial history that built it.