LEIGHTON

A Brief History of Our Town

Leighton is a town in Colbert County, Alabama, United States. It is part of the Florence - Muscle Shoals Metropolitan Statistical Area known as "The Shoals". At the 2010 census, the population was 729. Leighton has been hit by several tornadoes in the 2000s, including a damaging EF2 on May 8, 2008, that was caught on tape flipping over many cars and damaging buildings.

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 stagecoach roads. The name was later changed to "Leighton" for the 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. Leighton originally straddled the county line of Franklin and 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.

See History Timeline

The first settlers in what is now Leighton arrived in the early 1810s.