Opelika Alabama
Opelika AlabamaOpelika is a city in Lee County in east central Alabama. It is a suburb of Auburn, Alabama and is the county seat of Lee County. As of the 2005 census estimates, the population of the city is 23,804. It is a city in the Auburn Metropolitan Area, which, along with the Columbus, Georgia-Alabama Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Tuskegee, Alabama Micropolitan Statistical Area, comprises the greater Columbus-Auburn-Opelika, Georgia-Alabama Combined Statistical Area. HistoryThe first white settlers in the area now known as Opelika arrived in the late 1830s and established a community called Lebenon. Business Name. After the removal of the native peoples by force in 1836-37, the area became known as "Opelika", taken from a word in the Muskogee language meaning "large swamp". Settlement was sporadic until the late 1840s, when Opelika quickly became a commercial center with the coming of the railroad. In 1848, the Montgomery & West Point Railroad Company extended a rail line from Montgomery, Alabama to Opelika, and in 1851 completed a connection to West Point, Georgia, thus connecting Opelika with Atlanta, Georgia. This line was the only direct rail route between New Orleans and the Eastern Seaboard, and rapidly became one of the primary trade lines for shipments of raw cotton from Southern plantations to the North. The Montgomery & West Point was soon joined by a rail connection to Columbus, Georgia in 1855, and a connection to Birmingham, Alabama in 1869. Opelika Vacation Packages · Incorporation Alabama · Opelika Airline Tickets · |
