Tallapoosa County, AL
History
The Creek Indians lived along the Tallapoosa River and its streams for many hundreds of years before the Alabama Legislature, on December 18, 1832, created Tallapoosa County from land ceded by the Creek Indians in the 1832 Treaty of Cusseta. The name of the county is derived from the Tallapoosa River. Tallapoosa is believed to mean "pulverized rock" in a Muskogean Indian language, attesting to the rough Tallapoosa River waters that shaped the landscape of the area.Traders and settlers came to the area that would become Tallapoosa County via the Okfuskee Trail or the Upper Creek Trading Path, a southern route below the Appalachian barrier to the Mississippi Valley. In August 1814 the Creeks ceded nearly 23 million acres of territory under the Treaty of Fort Jackson, opening up much of central Alabama to settlement. The earliest settlers came from the Carolinas, Georgia, and Tennessee.
Sources: Encyclopedia of Alabama and the Tallapoosa County, Alabama Website