Perry County Courthouse














                                                   Perry County The first courthouse, a log cabin, was erected at Perry Ridge,
                                                    located approximately seven miles southeast of present-day Marion. The county soon found
                                                    that a more centrally located county seat was needed, and in 1823 Marion became the county
                                                    seat. A two-story log cabin was erected on the site of the present-day courthouse. A modest
                                                    brick building replaced the log cabin shortly thereafter in 1837. In 1854, construction began on
                                                    a new marble-and-brick Greek Revival courthouse. Two-story porticos flanked each end of the
                                                    building, with six Ionic columns supporting the massive pediments. The building was completed
                                                    in 1856 and underwent renovation in 1954. It continues to serve as the county courthouse.

    The county became a major center for education in the Black Belt. Baptists founded both Judson College (1838) and Howard
    College (1842). Lincoln Normal School was founded in 1867 by freed slaves as a school for African American children. It later
    moved to Montgomery and was renamed Alabama State University. A museum is currently underway on the site of Lincoln to
    house historic memorabilia regarding Lincoln School. Many of the buildings on the campus of the Marion Military Institute pre-
    date the Civil War, and its chapel, built in 1857, served as a Confederate hospital during the war.

    The Perry County school district employs approximately 260 teachers and administrators who serve more than 2,200
    students in four primary and secondary schools. Perry County is also home to Alabama's only college for women, Judson
    College, founded in 1838 (the second oldest women's college in the South) and located in Marion. Founded in 1842 as
    Howard College, the Marion Military Institute (as it was named after Howard moved to Birmingham) is the nation's oldest two-
    year military college, serving both male and female cadets.

    During the civil rights era, an incident in Marion triggered the Selma-to-Montgomery March and the ensuing Voting Rights Act
    of 1965. Baptists also made Marion the headquarters of the state-wide newspaper and the first location of the Home Mission
    Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.
       
HISTORY
Copyright © 2010-2013  I Perry County Commission I Marion, Alabama  36756
All Rights Reserved
Webmaster: Smart Business Impressions  
ELECTED OFFICIALS
COUNTY LINKS
    Perry County, Alabama
Perry County is located in the west-central part of the state of Alabama, and it is part of Alabama's Black Belt region.
Perry County was created by the Alabama legislature on December 13, 1819, from land acquired from the Creek Indians
in the 1814 Treaty of Fort Jackson. It was named for Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry of Rhode Island, a hero of the
War of 1812. When the area was officially opened to settlement, pioneers came from the Carolinas, Georgia, and
Tennessee. The first towns in the area that would become Perry County were Muckle's Ridge (now known as Marion),
Perry Ridge, Uniontown (originally known as Woodville), and Heiberger. Civil-rights leader Coretta Scott King was born
in Heiberger and attended Lincoln Normal School in Marion, which is also home to Marion Military Institute and the
all-female Judson College. Perry County is governed by an elected five-member Board of Commissioners and includes
the communities of Marion and Uniontown, Sprott, and many other small towns.