Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Services in Daviston, AL

Daviston is a tiny town in the extreme northeastern corner of Tallapoosa County in east-central Alabama, just north of the Tallapoosa River.

Daviston, incorporated on February 16, 1887, is believed to be the first incorporated rural town in Tallapoosa County, and its first mayor was J. D. Dunn.

The town grew out of the opening of Creek Indian lands after 1832, near the old Federal Horse Path and Chapman Road from West Point, Georgia; the first recorded land deed in the area dates to 1836.

Daviston is named for John O. Davis, its first postmaster when the post office was established in 1853; local tradition says his handwritten "Davis Town" was misread by postal officials, producing "Daviston."

In its nineteenth-century heyday the town supported grist and saw mills, a blacksmith shop, a buggy shop, a coffin shop, a pharmacy, and six saloons or inns.

Daviston is known for its perfectly square town boundary; when the town limits were expanded by a mile in each direction in 1977, the town more than doubled in size while keeping its square shape.

Daviston College opened in the 1880s and later became the town's high school; when Daviston School closed in 1988 after 105 years, it was the smallest school in Alabama, with just 120 students in grades K-12.

Horseshoe Bend National Military Park, which preserves the site of the 1814 Battle of Horseshoe Bend that ended the Creek War, lies about five miles southwest of town and uses a Daviston mailing address.

The 2020 census counted 174 residents in Daviston, down from 214 in 2010.

Daviston is the birthplace of Floyd Mann, Alabama's public safety director during the Freedom Rides of 1961.