· Founding Date: January 9, 1836
· Area: 567 square miles
· Population: 93,019 (2010 Census)
· Major Waterways: Tennessee River, Black Warrior River
· Major Highways: U.S. 431, U.S. 231
· County Seat: Guntersville
· Largest City: Albertville
Present-day Marshall County was created by the Alabama legislature on January 9, 1836, from Cherokee land acquired in the 1835 Treaty of New Echota. The county was named in honor of John Marshall, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1801 to 1835. Most early county settlers came from Tennessee, Virginia, and the Carolinas. The earliest towns in the area were Beard's Bluff, Guntersville, Warrenton, and Claysville.
Major Cities and Demographics
According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the population of Marshall County was 87,185. Of that total, 87.6 percent of respondents identified themselves as white, 12.1 percent as Hispanic, 1.7 percent as two or more races, 1.6 percent as black, 0.8 percent as Native American, and 0.5 percent as Asian. The largest city in the county is Albertville, with an estimated population of 21,160. Other significant population centers include Boaz, Guntersville, and Arab. Marshall County benefits from its proximity to the high-tech center of Huntsville, known as the Silicon Valley of the South because of the predominance of aerospace, computer, and other technology-based industries in and around the city. Marshall County's median household income was $39,343, compared with $40,547 for the state as a whole, and the per capita income was $19,241, compared with $22,732 for the state as a whole.
Until the middle of the twentieth century, farming was the prevailing occupation among Marshall County residents, and the staple crops were cotton and corn. During the 1930s, however, farming diversified into other food crops and livestock because of changes brought about by the arrival of the boll weevil and the hardships caused by the Great Depression. The mineral-rich soil of Marshall County brought mining interests to the area as well. With the completion of the Guntersville Dam by the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1939, the county moved from an agrarian economy to a more industrial economy. The dam made Guntersville the southernmost port of the Tennessee River navigation system, allowing the shipping industry to flourish. It also led to a number of recreational opportunities, including boating and fishing.
· Educational services, and health care and social assistance (16.3 percent)
· Retail trade (10.6 percent)
· Construction (10.0 percent)
· Professional, scientific, management, and administrative and waste management services (7.6 percent)
· Arts, entertainment, recreation, and accommodation and food services (6.9 percent)
· Transportation and warehousing, and utilities (5.3 percent)
· Wholesale trade (4.7 percent)
· Other services, except public administration (4.7 percent)
· Public administration (4.1 percent)
· Finance and insurance, and real estate, rental, and leasing (3.1 percent)
· Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, and extractive (2.4 percent)
· Information (2.3 percent)
Comprising approximately 567 square miles, Marshall County is one of the five smallest counties in the state. The county lies in the northeast part of the state in the Cumberland Plateau physiographic section in the Atlantic Plain region, and its topography encompasses sandstone plateaus, rough mountain slopes, and limestone valleys. It is bordered on the northwest by Madison County, on the northeast by Jackson County, on the east by DeKalb County, on the southeast by Etowah County, on the southwest by Blount and Cullman counties, and on the west by Morgan County.
Marshall offers a range of recreational opportunities. Lake Guntersville State Park in the Tennessee Valley overlooks the 69,000-acre Guntersville Reservoir. The park ranges over 6,000 acres of natural woodlands and provides visitors with such diverse activities as fishing, hiking, camping, boating, swimming, biking, and golfing. Cathedral Caverns State Park, Alabama's newest, is located in the northern part of the county. The entrance to the cave system is 126 feet wide and 25 feet high, making it the world's largest cave opening, and the cave is home to the world's largest stalagmite, Goliath. Buck's Pocket State Park, located in a natural valley of the Appalachian Mountain chain in the western part of the county, ranges over 2,000 acres and is so remote that Alabama political mythology designates it as the place where retired state politicians retire to complete obscurity. The park offers hiking, camping, and picnicking.
Duncan, Katherine McKinstry. The History of Marshall County, Alabama. Albertville, Ala.: Thompson Print., 1969.