Editing Leighton, Alabama (section)

==History==
The first settlers in what is now Leighton arrived in the early 1810s. The community was initially known as "Crossroads" for its location at the intersection of two early stage coach roads.  The name was later changed to "Leighton" for town's first postmaster, the Reverend William Leigh. The town developed as a cotton shipping center in the 1830s after the [[Tuscumbia, Courtland and Decatur Railroad]] constructed a railroad line through the area.  Leighton incorporated in 1890.<ref name=kaetz>James P. Kaetz, "[http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-3416 Leighton]," ''Encyclopedia of Alabama'', March 7, 2013.</ref>

Leighton originally straddled the county line of [[Franklin County, Alabama|Franklin]] and [[Lawrence County, Alabama|Lawrence]] Counties. When Colbert County was carved off in 1867, the town still remained divided between the new county and Lawrence. On the 1880 U.S. Census, it reported having 196 residents on the Colbert County side and 83 on the Lawrence County side. After the 1890 Census, Colbert County's eastern border was expanded eastward several miles to Town Creek, placing Leighton wholly within Colbert.<ref>1820-2010 U.S. Censuses research on Colbert, Franklin and Lawrence County, Alabama and its communities</ref>

In 1909, an African-American man named Sam Davenport was lynched by a mob of some two dozen men in Leighton. Davenport was suspected of burning a white man's barn.<ref>{{Cite journal |title = Negro is Lynched for Barn Burning |date=January 25, 1909 |journal = The Atlanta Constitution }}</ref>