Alabama River Trail: Uniontown

Alabama Catfish Feed Mill, Uniontown, AL

Fields with grazing cattle and grass farming are mainly what we see as we drive towards Uniontown. Perry County Correctional Center is on the right side of the highway. We arrived on the outskirts of Uniontown at 7:15 a.m.The Alabama Catfish Feed Mill was the first manufacturing business that we passed. We also drove by a Harvest Select catfish food processing plant and a Piggly Wiggly on our way into town. The slacks manufacturer and fertilizer plants that Chiriaco mentions may be closed now. We could not locate them as we drove through.

Chiriaco's description of Uniontown is the following:

"0 mi. Uniontown. Population 1, 730. Coordinates, 32.2658 north latitude and 87.3051 west longitude. This town is located in extreme southeastern Perry County next to the Marengo County line. It is an incorporated town with a United States Post Office. It was settled in 1818 by the Wood Brothers, who were honored with the town's  original name, Woodville. Because there was already a Woodville Post Office in the state when the post office was established here in 1833, Philick J. Weaver suggested the name be changed to Uniontown for his father's post office in Maryland. Uniontown was reincorporated in 1836.

Uniontown's population in 1960 was 1,993. In west central Alabama, west of Selma, it is in the fertile black belt. The town manufactures knit slacks, fertilizers, and cheese, and does sheet metal work.

Perry County has an area of 734 square miles and a population of 12,759. In west central Alabama, its county seat is Marion, most of the county is in the black belt; it is drained by the Cahaba River and Oakmulgee Creek. Cotton is grown in the county and livestock is raised. Part of Talladega National Forest is in the Northeast portion. The county was formed in 1819.

The Alabama River Trail leaves Uniontown via Cahaba Road. Alongside the road, within the town limits, is Farmer's Fertilizers, Inc., which manufactures fertilizers. The company was established in 1982.

Outside the town limits, the trail, while in Perry County, courses through Uniontown County Subdivision, which occupies the entire panhandle of the county and part of its southwestern district. The Uniontown division had a population of 5,621 in 1960 and 4,892 1970, a decline of 13 percent.

The black belt, which the trail now traverses, led the way in new cattle development when backward and ruinous methods of farming, combined with boll-weevil damage, forced abandonment of much cotton acreage. Cattle had not been imported before, because of the cattle tick, which caused tick fever (no longer present); because of poor feeding practices, in large part resulting from the fact that northern hay crops were not well suited either to the climate, or to the system of farming in vogue; and because of lack of care in breeding."

Chiriaco, Amerigo C .,  Vol A, Alabama River Trail. The Wiregrass Archives, Dothan, AL.