Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Piedmont, AL

Piedmont is a city that spans Calhoun and Cherokee counties in northeastern Alabama, lying mainly in Calhoun County at the foot of the Appalachian foothills.

The 2020 census counted 4,787 residents in Piedmont, in about 2,040 households, making it part of the Anniston-Oxford metropolitan area.

The community began in the early 1840s at the crossroads of two early post roads where Cherokee and Creek trails had once converged, and local tradition says mail was once left in a hollow stump, giving the spot the nickname 'Hollow Stump.'

Major Jacob Forney Dailey arrived from North Carolina in 1848, bought land, and named the settlement Cross Plains; a post office under that name opened on September 22, 1851.

The town was incorporated as Cross Plains in 1871, and residents adopted the name Piedmont, meaning 'foot of the mountains,' in 1888.

The Standard Coosa-Thatcher Cotton Mill, founded in 1891 and operating from 1892 until 1995, was the main employer in and around Piedmont for nearly a century.

Piedmont is the closest city to Dugger Mountain, at 2,140 feet the second-highest point in Alabama, and the surrounding Dugger Mountain Wilderness in the Talladega National Forest.

The paved Chief Ladiga Trail runs through downtown Piedmont and, together with Georgia's Silver Comet Trail, forms a rail trail of nearly 100 miles between Anniston and Atlanta.

Terrapin Creek, which flows through the Piedmont area, draws visitors for kayaking, canoeing, camping, swimming, and fishing.

The Piedmont Historical Society preserves local history at the Southern Railroad Depot Museum, an 1867 depot listed on national and state preservation registers.