Dothan Alabama History & Facts

Dothan is a city in Dale, Henry, and Houston counties and the Houston county seat in the U.S. state of Alabama. It is Alabama's eighth-largest city, with a population of 71,072 at the 2020 census. It is near the state's southeastern corner, about 20 miles (32 km) west of Georgia and 16 miles (26 km) north of Florida. It is named after the biblical city where Joseph's brothers threw him into a cistern and sold him into slavery in Egypt.

Dothan is the principal city of the Dothan, Alabama metropolitan area, which encompasses all of Geneva, Henry, and Houston counties; the small portion in Dale County is part of the Ozark Micropolitan Statistical Area. Together they form the Dothan-Ozark Combined Statistical Area. Coffee County and its Enterprise micropolitan area was originally combined as a statistical area with both Dothan and Ozark as well, but is now split off as its own statistical area by the US Census Bureau. Together they form the Wiregrass region, of which Dothan is the Alabama portion's largest city. The combined population of the entire Dothan metropolitan area in 2010 was 145,639. The city is the main transportation and commercial hub for a significant part of southeastern Alabama, southwest Georgia, and nearby portions of the Florida Panhandle. Since approximately one-fourth of the U.S. peanut crop is produced nearby, much of it processed in the city, Dothan is known as "The Peanut Capital of the World". It also hosts the annual National Peanut Festival at the Peanut Festival Fairgrounds.

Between 1763 and 1783, the region that is now Dothan was part of the colony of British West Florida.

The first permanent white settlers consisted of nine families who moved into the area during the early 1830s to harvest the abundant timber. Their settlement, named Poplar Head after the spring, failed to thrive. It was all but abandoned by the time of the Civil War. After the war, a local Pony Express route was founded; together with other developments during the Reconstruction Era, the town began to grow. On November 11, 1885, the citizens voted to incorporate, naming their new city Dothan at the suggestion of a local clergyman after discovering that "Poplar Head" was already registered with the U.S. post office for a town in northern Alabama.

Dothan is in northwestern Houston County in southeastern Alabama. The city limits extend north into Henry County and northwest into Dale County. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 89.7 square miles (232.4 km2), of which 89.4 square miles (231.5 km2) is land and 0.31 square miles (0.8 km2), or 0.36%, is water.

Famous Peoples From Dothan Alabama

John Brown

(September 1, 1904 – November 14, 1974) was an American college football player and film actor billed as John Mack Brown at the height of his screen career. He acted and starred mainly in Western films.

Born and raised in Dothan, Alabama, Brown was the son of Ed and Mattie Brown, one of eight siblings. His parents were shopkeepers. He was a star of the high school football team, earning a football scholarship to the University of Alabama. His little brother Tolbert "Red" Brown played with "Mack" in 1925.

After he finished college, he sold insurance and later coached the freshman running backs on the University of Alabama's football team.

We also serve Auburn city.

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