Mooresville

Mooresville is located in central Limestone County in the extreme north-central part of the state. It has a mayor/city council form of government. Mooresville is the oldest incorporated town in Alabama. Author and lawyer Daniel Hundley lived for many years in Mooresville.

Mooresville citizens petitioned the Territorial Legislature to be allowed to incorporate in October 1818, officially incorporating on November 16, 1818, beating Athens, the county seat, to its charter by three days. A rival settlement, Cotton Port, did not survive. The town's economy depended on cotton farming and transport. The devastation wrought by the boll weevil left Mooresville without an economic base, and inhabitants began moving away for better job opportunities. Today, the town residents depend on nearby Decatur and Huntsville for employment as well as economic benefits from tourism to see the town's historic homes, churches, and businesses. Many homes in Mooresville were documented by the Historic American Building Survey in the 1930s.

According to 2016 Census estimates, Mooresville recorded a population of 53, with 100 percent of respondents identifying themselves as white. The town's median household income, according to 2010 estimates, was $113,125, and the per capita income was $75,061.

Employment

According to 2016 Census estimates, the work force in Mooresville was divided among the following industrial categories:

· Professional, scientific, management, and administrative and waste   management services (54.1 percent)
· Other services, except public administration (13.5 percent)
· Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, and extractive (8.1 percent)
· Public administration (8.1 percent)
· Educational services, and health care and social assistance (5.4 percent)
· Manufacturing (5.4 percent)
· Retail trade (5.4 percent)

Students in Mooresville attend Limestone County schools; no public schools are located within the town limits.

County Highway 71 bisects Mooresville running north-south. Interstate Highway 565/U.S. Highway 72 is located just north of Mooresville's northern town limits.

The entire town of Mooresville is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, with 14 structures dating from the 1820 to the 1850s. The Stagecoach Tavern (ca. 1821) is the oldest public frame building in the state and served as the post office until the Mooresville Post Office was constructed in 1840. It is the oldest continually operating post office in the state and one of the oldest in the nation. The mailboxes and office furnishings in the post office are even older, having been transferred from the original post office in the tavern. In May of odd-numbered years, the town holds a home and garden tour. The 1839 Brick Church is very popular as a wedding venue. Belle Mina, the Late Georgian plantation of Alabama's second governor Thomas Bibb, lies a few miles north of Mooresville. The town is located on the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge and Limestone Bay off of the Tennessee River, both of which offer opportunities for water sports, hunting, and bird watching.

Jones, Pat. The Story of Mooresville: A Town Older than the State. Huntsville, Ala.: North Alabama Historical Association, 1968.

Limestone County Heritage Book Committee. The Heritage of Limestone County, Alabama. Clanton, Ala.: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 1998.

Jackson, Harvey H., ed. The WPA Guide to 1930s Alabama. 1941. Reprint, Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2000.