Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Phil Campbell, AL

Phil Campbell is a town in southeastern Franklin County, Alabama, and the largest community in the southern part of the county.

The town is named for Phillip Campbell, an English railroad engineer and work-crew leader who built a depot and siding there in the 1880s after local businessman Mel Allen promised to develop and name a town for him.

Phil Campbell is one of only two Alabama towns bearing both the first and last name of an individual; the other is Susan Moore.

The town was founded in 1896 and incorporated in 1911, fifteen years later, when it had only about 300 residents.

The 2020 census counted 992 residents in Phil Campbell, down from 1,148 in 2010, and the town covers about 4.3 square miles along Alabama State Route 13, midway between Russellville and Haleyville.

In June 1995, Brooklyn writer Phil Campbell organized a convention in the town for people named Phil Campbell; twenty-two Phil Campbells and one Phyllis Campbell attended, and the town's city hall still keeps a file of visiting namesakes.

On April 27, 2011, an EF5 tornado with winds estimated at 210 mph tore directly through Phil Campbell during the Super Outbreak, killing 27 people in the town and destroying nearly a third of its homes.

After the 2011 tornado, namesakes from around the world rallied under the slogan 'I'm with Phil,' raising money and traveling to the town to help rebuild houses, the high school, and city hall.

The damaged Phil Campbell High School was torn down after the tornado, and a new school opened in September 2014; the Bobcats won the school's first baseball state title in 2021.

Phil Campbell is home to a campus of Northwest-Shoals Community College, described as the state's first junior college, whose students perform the long-running Christmas production The Legend of Toyland.