Selma was first recorded on a map in 1732 as Ecor Bienville, in honor of the then-French provincial governor Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, Seiuer de Bienville. Not until the early 1800s did European settlers begin to frequent the site, however, which by then they referred to as "High Soap Stone Bluff." The site became known as "Moore's Bluff" when Thomas Moore, a settler from Tennessee, built a cabin there in 1815.
Two years later, a group of influential settlers in the area, including future vice president of the United States William Rufus King, formed the Selma Town Land Company to buy up land to establish a town above the river. On December 4, 1820, Selma was incorporated by the state legislature. (Source: Encyclopedia of Alabama)
