Evergreen, AL

Evergreen is the Conecuh County seat, a city of about 3,944 people in the 2010 census and a practical center for southwest Alabama. Settlers from Georgia and South Carolina arrived in the area around 1818, and Revolutionary War veteran James Cosey helped establish the town in 1819. The name came from the greenery and ferns that filled the surrounding woods. Evergreen became the county seat in 1866 after Sparta was burned during the Civil War, then incorporated as a city in 1873. That courthouse role still shapes the town: county offices, schools, shopping, and services all collect here.

ATTRBazonka / CC BY-SA 4.0

The place has had to rebuild more than once. A tornado in 1882 destroyed nearly every building except the Episcopal Church, and fires in November 1895 swept through both sides of the railroad. Evergreen’s later history adds its own signatures: local smilax and other greenery were shipped to decorate Grover Cleveland’s 1885 inauguration, Conecuh Sausage opened here in 1947, and I-65 now runs along the city’s western side. The calendar brings a Fall Festival, Christmas Parade, Sausage Day, and Collard Greens Festival. Evergreen feels like a county seat with a memory for hard resets and a taste for keeping traditions visible.