Hayneville, AL

Hayneville is the Lowndes County seat in Alabama's Black Belt, a town founded around cotton, county government, and the roads that later carried the Selma-to-Montgomery story. Settlers established the community in 1820, it became the county seat in 1831, and the name honors South Carolina politician Robert Y. Hayne. For a time the town was called Big Swamp, a plainspoken name for the wet country around the settlement. Rail service gave Hayneville another turn: the Hayneville Railway Company formed in 1903, then reorganized as the Hayneville & Montgomery Railroad to connect local shipping with the L&N line.

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Hayneville's civic landmarks hold several layers at once. The 1856 Lowndes County Courthouse is Alabama's oldest surviving pre-Civil War courthouse, and its Washington Street setting places county government at the center of town. First Missionary Baptist Church carries the Civil Rights Movement into the local map: the Lowndes County Freedom Organization held its 1966 candidate nomination convention there. Central High School, formerly Lowndes County Training School, adds another continuing institution. Hayneville is a courthouse town with a railroad past and a civil-rights history that remains legible from one block to the next.