Sulligent, AL

Sulligent is a Lamar County town whose name is a railroad mash-up. It began as Elliott, after the Kansas City-Memphis-Birmingham Railroad's chief engineer, then was renamed Sulligent, combining Sullivan, the railroad superintendent, and Sargeant, its passenger agent. The town incorporated in 1897, and cotton quickly became its working story—more than 2,500 bales were ginned and shipped in the mid-1890s. The Greer Bankhead House, older than the city itself, is Lamar County's only National Register structure. U.S. 278, State Route 17, and the BNSF line still meet in town. Sulligent is a railroad name, a cotton town, and a northwestern Alabama crossroads.