Facts About Madison
- The area was occupied historically by the Koasati, a Muskogean-speaking people before they were thousands of years of indigenous cultures.
- John Cartwright was the inaugural European-American settler of Madison, arriving in 1818.
- Originally named “Madison Station,” the city burgeoned in the 1850s, evolving around a halt of the Memphis & Charleston Railroad.
- The town of Madison was incorporated on the 2nd of December 1869.
- Madison has a total area of 30.694 square miles, of which 30.563 square miles is land and 0.131 square miles is water.
- In 1986, Madison voters overwhelmingly voted to remain independent by not merging with Huntsville.
- Madison is the 9th largest city in Alabama and one of the fastest-growing cities in Alabama with an estimated population of 59,785, as of 2022.
- Madison was the birthplace of Oscar Adams, the first African American Alabama Supreme Court Justice.
- Madison is included in the Huntsville Metropolitan Area, the second-largest in the state, and included in the merged Huntsville-Decatur Combined Statistical Area.
- The renowned civil rights leader, Rosa Parks, visited Madison in 1990.
