Powell, AL

Powell sits on Sand Mountain in northeast Alabama, where DeKalb County meets the Jackson County line. Its crossroads location gives the town a useful regional orientation: Rainsville lies to the southeast, Section is across the county line, and Alabama 35 points toward Scottsboro, Rainsville, and Fort Payne. About 901 people lived here in 2020, with open country and scattered homes stretching beyond the central streets.

ATTRBrian Stansberry / CC BY 4.0

The town's story begins with merchant Doc Powell, who bought 500 acres in 1905, opened a store, and helped draw a school around it. That early crossroads pattern still shapes Powell's character. The town was incorporated as Powell's Crossroads in the 1960s and shortened to Powell by 1990. Northeast Alabama Community College occupies the northwest edge, bringing a student presence to a place otherwise rooted in farms, local roads, and Sand Mountain's broad, high plateau country. Powell also keeps its own mayor-and-council government, giving the small town a clear center within the larger mountain landscape.