Town of Clio prospered with railroads

By Tom Rodgers
Published: May 12, 2008

“Clio,” historian Alto L. Jackson wrote, “is a relative newcomer to Barbour County.”
Long after Eufaula, Clayton, and Louisville had become towns, the Clio community in southern Barbour County marked time, seemingly suspended in a 19th century time warp. 
But things changed with the coming of the railroad. 
The best study of Clio, Jackson’s “Clio, Alabama: A History,” describes the town in its early days. Originally called Adkison Head, the settlement grew up along the old Marianna Road about a mile east of a small stream called Judy Branch.
Settlers from the “Little “Scotland” community of Barbour County filtered into the area to start businesses there.  Murdoch Martin came from Louisville to open the community’s first store. 
Clayton Webster “Manus” Knight operated a cotton gin, and Alexander Shaw owned a general store. By 1869, the community had a post office. 
By 1890, the Central of Georgia Railroad extended the rail line from Clayton to Ozark and took advantage of the supply of water from a nearby spring to build a wooden water tank at Clio for use by the locomotives.
Frame houses soon went up for the foreman and members of the section crew on duty around the clock at the Clio station. 
The crew maintained the rail line northward to Louisville and southward to Dill Station (nearly to Ozark), repairing damaged tracks and removing trees and debris.
With the coming of the railroad, merchants in Adkison’s Head (“Old Clio”) began relocating to be nearer the new rail line. Alexander Shaw was the first to move, followed by “Manus” Knight who re-assembled his cotton gin in the new location.
Eventually the whole settlement of Clio moved about one mile west of its original site. The town was incorporated in 1890.
There are different versions of how Clio got its name. Alto Jackson believes that the most likely account is that a traveling violinist came up with the name while he was staying in the community and drumming up business for giving fiddle lessons to prospective square dance musicians. In Greek mythology, Clio was the Muse of History.
Clio experienced a burst of expansion between 1900 and 1920, and the town’s population grew from 200 in 1888 to 580 in 1912.
Besides the railroad depot, the town boasted 25 stores, two cotton gins, two cotton warehouses, three banks, three churches, two doctors, a dentist, a blacksmith shop and a livery stable. The post office was in Jesse N. Strickland’s store on the west side of Louisville Street. 
Frank McRae’s brickmaking business furnished bricks for many structures in downtown Clio. McRae and W. Robert Strickland also operated a profitable sawmill. William A. Arnold’s fertilizer company on Louisville Street produced 20 tons of guano per day. 
Alex and Sarah Rush opened the Clionian Hotel, a three-story wooden building near the railroad depot; it became known for fine food and accommodations. In 1903, Miss Mattie Hunt and her parents began operating a hotel, a two-story frame building on the east side of Louisville Street opposite the depot. 
The Clio Telephone Company (which also served Louisville and Ariton) opened in 1905, providing the first telephone service for southern Barbour County.  G. Ernest Jones began publishing the Clio Free Press in 1906. 
Churches in the community included the Clio Methodist Church, built in 1893, and Clio Baptist Church, started by Baptist evangelists in 1897. Clio’s Presbyterian Church was organized in 1902. 
The first schoolhouse appeared in Clio around 1895, a building on the west side of Louisville Street; by 1905, there was a larger three-room L-shaped building on Brundidge Street. Barbour County’s only high school opened in Clio in 1911.
Clio has been the home town of some famous personalities.  Although his political career led to a strong association with Clayton, former Alabama governor George C. Wallace was born in Clio. Baseball Hall of Famer and former Atlanta Braves announcer Don Sutton is a Clio native.