Decatur was a very important point in North Alabama during its earliest days. Decatur was the eastern terminus of the Tuscumbia, Courtland and Decatur Railroad (in the early 1830s), the first railway built west of the Appalachian Mountains. In 1850 the Tuscumbia, Courtland and Decatur Railroad was incorporated into the Memphis & Charleston Railroad.
Because of its location on the Tennessee River at the strategically important crossing of two major railroads, Decatur was the site of several encounters during the American Civil War. When the Union army occupied the city early in the war, the commanding general ordered all but four buildings in the town destroyed. Bricks from some of the churches in town were used to build stoves and chimneys for the buildings that housed soldiers. The four buildings that remained (and are still standing) are the Old State Bank, the Dancy-Polk House, the Todd House, and the Burleson-Hinds-McEntire House.
After the Union victory in the Battle of Atlanta, a Confederate army under the command of Gen. John Bell Hood briefly sparred with a vastly outmanned garrison during the 1864 Battle of Decatur, when Decatur was referred to as A Tough Nut To Crack.
