The county seat of Madison County, Alabama is Huntsville, a city pioneered by John Hunt in 1805 for whom the city is named. By 1819, Huntsville was the largest town in the Alabama Territory and the site where the leaders met to petition Congress to grant Alabama statehood. The recreated 1819 Alabama Constitution Village, a block from the courthouse square, commemorates the historic events through tours given by costumed guides.
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While in 1819, Huntsville and Madison County were primarily cotton market areas, today it is the Rocket City. In 1950, U.S. Sen. John Sparkman, who lived in Huntsville's historic Twickenham neighborhood, brought a band of German rocket scientists to Redstone Arsenal to develop rockets for the U.S. Army. By the end of the decade, Wernher von Braun's team had developed the rocket which orbited America's first satellite. They eventually put the first American in space and transported the first astronauts to the Moon. Today, Huntsville is home to |
Marshall Space Flight Center and the U.S. Space and Rocket Center
, where thousands of students from across the country come to U.S Space Camp every year.
Huntsville/Madison County is also home to Redstone Arsenal, a United States Army installation responsible for research, development, production and worldwide support of missile defense, aviation, rockets and related programs. Redstone Arsenal is home to the U.S. Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM), Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC), and many other Army and NASA organizations.
Near Huntsville is the City of Madison, Alabama, whose first settler was John Cartwright in 1818. Madison is a rapidly growing area with almost 33,000 residents today. Since 1990, the population of Madison has more than doubled. And as recently as 1980, Madison was a town of just 4,000 residents. One reason Madison has experienced such growth is the increasing interest from high-tech businesses for locating there. Some examples of the draw to Madison are the national award-winning school district, the culturally diverse population, low crime rate, and prime locations for new businesses.
Madison County offers unique post-secondary educational experiences with the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Alabama A&M University, Calhoun Community College, Faulkner University at Huntsville, JF Drake State Technical College, Oakwood College, and Virginia College at Huntsville.
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Huntsville is the birthplace of the National Children's Advocacy Center, where Congressman Cramer founded it in 1985. As then Madison County District Attorney, Cramer wanted to start a place that would be a child-friendly environment where victims of child abuse and their families could get help in one centralized location. Today, the National Children's Alliance serves as the national network of over 500 Children's Advocacy Centers in every state, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. |
To find out more about Madison County, please browse the links listed below.
Area Attractions and Events:
Alabama Constitution Village
Burritt on the Mountain
Cathedral Caverns State Park
Clay House Museum
Early Works
Fantasy Playhouse Children's Theater
Harrison Brothers Hardware
Huntsville/Madison County Botanical Gardens
Huntsville Museum of Art
Madison County Military "Hall of Heros"
National Space Science and Technology Center
North Alabama Railroad Museum
Renaissance Theater
Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail
SciQuest
State Black Archives, Research Center and Museum
Theatre Huntsville
Veterans Memorial Museum
Von Braun Center
U.S Space Camp
U.S. Space and Rocket Center
Wheeler Wildlife Refuge
