Cities / History

LaFayette, Alabama, the county seat of Chambers County, Alabama, provides the perfect balance between rural and urban life. Birthplace of professional boxer Joe Louis, and strategically situated near Auburn/Opelika, Montgomery, and Atlanta, LaFayette caters to those that enjoy reveling in its natural beauty and historic architecture, while still having the option of partaking in more urban centered activities. With a renewed focus on securing a variety of new industry while maintaining its hometown, feel, LaFayette is the perfect place to live, raise a family, or just visit.

First known as Bluffton from 1865, this area became known as the City of Lanett, Alabama in 1895. The city was anchored by the huge Lanett Mill, which began textiles operations in 1894. The name Lanett came from the surname combination of early textile leaders Lafayette Lanier and Theodore Bennett. Today, the defunct mill is a different kind of attraction. It’s being dismantled brick by historic brick in a massive operation that will free up valuable land along the Chattahoochee River, and the city is now in a hospitality accommodations role in the Greater Valley area’s burgeoning economy.

Valley was incorporated on May 20, 1980, when a vote of the citizens of four textile towns approved to incorporate into one city. The four towns, Fairfax, Langdale, RiverView and Shawmut, were built around textile mills owned by the giant textile corporation, West Point Stevens. Then it was a thriving mega-business before foreign competition eroded its markets. We are the birthplace of WestPoint Manufacturing, the fore-runner of WestPoint Stevens. Our Langdale and Riverdale Mills were completed in 1866, right after the Civil War, starting the great southern textile revolution on the Alabama banks of the Chattahoochee River. Our four towns are all listed in the National List of Historic Places.

West Point, Georgia, established on the banks of the Chattahoochee River in 1832, was historically the headquarters and guiding hand of the area’s dominant textile industry, which was established just after the Civil War. Over the last several years, that industry moved abroad.

Today, West Point is home to Kia Motors Manufacturing Georgia site – Kia’s first U.S. plant. Several Kia suppliers have located in two business parks: one in Troup County and one in Harris County – and both within the City of West Point. Part of West Point’s attractiveness is its access to Interstate 85, which provides an easy drive to Atlanta and the Atlanta airport to the north and Montgomery, AL to the south.

West Point is served by both Troup and Harris county schools, each regarded as top-quality, and by highly rated Springwood School in nearby Lanett.

For leisure pursuits, there’s historic Fort Tyler, New Horizon Theatre, Hawkes Library, the restored West Point Depot and Museum, West Point River Park, and, just to the north, West Point Lake. Of course, the Chattahoochee River runs right through the middle of town, giving kayakers and canoeists another view of the city.