Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Waterloo Waterloo, AL

Waterloo is a town in Lauderdale County, in the northwestern corner of Alabama, and is part of the Florence-Muscle Shoals metropolitan area known as "The Shoals."

Waterloo was settled in 1824 and incorporated on December 13, 1832, making it one of the oldest incorporated towns in Alabama.

The town's name most likely commemorates the Battle of Waterloo.

Waterloo was first built on the banks of the Tennessee River and, according to the 1910 U.S. Census, was reincorporated in 1903.

In 1838, Waterloo served as the end point in Alabama of the forced Cherokee removal known as the Trail of Tears, where Cherokee people boarded boats on the Tennessee River for the journey west to present-day Oklahoma.

Waterloo is the official end point of the annual Trail of Tears Commemorative Motorcycle Ride, held to honor those removed.

In the 1930s the town was relocated to its current site when the Tennessee Valley Authority completed Pickwick Landing Dam and impounded Pickwick Lake.

Waterloo was once the second-largest community in Lauderdale County after Florence, reaching a peak of 524 residents in 1940.

Waterloo's population was 178 at the 2020 census, and it is now the smallest of Lauderdale County's incorporated communities.

The town sits along the north shore of Pickwick Lake, about 20 miles upstream from Pickwick Landing Dam, and covers about 0.8 square miles.