Editing Jackson County, Alabama (section)

==History==
Jackson County was established on December 13, 1819, after the federal government arranged a treaty to remove the [[Cherokee]] from the area and extinguish their land claims.<ref>[https://www.archives.alabama.gov/counties/jackson.html "Counties: Jackson County"], Alabama Department of Archives and History, 2014</ref> The hilly and mountainous terrain of the [[Appalachians]] made the area unsuitable for the plantation-style agriculture of the lowlands and coastal area. It was settled largely by families from Tennessee, South Carolina, and Georgia.<ref name="AlEnc"/>

This area was developed largely for subsistence farming, and few families held any slaves. For instance, in 1860, [[Bellefonte, Alabama]], then the county seat and largest community in the county, had a population of 181, of whom eight were [[free people of color|free blacks]] and the remainder were white. No slaves were recorded in that community.<ref>http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1860a-04.pdf {{Bare URL PDF|date=March 2022}}</ref>

The county is crossed by a number of rivers and waterways; the most important is the [[Tennessee River]], which drains most of the county. The current county seat of [[Scottsboro, Alabama|Scottsboro]] developed along the river, and was also the site of a railroad station when railroads reached the area. Hydroelectric power was developed in the first quarter of the 20th century to generate energy for industry. By the mid-20th century, industry had replaced agriculture as the most important element of the economy.<ref name="AlEnc"/>