The Choccolocco Creek is one of two main tributaries of the

Coosa River The Coosa River is a tributary of the Alabama River in the U.S. states of Alabama and Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. The river is about long.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, ac ...

in central Alabama. The watershed of the creek comprises 246,000 acres (376 mi²) of drainage area. The waterway runs through the Talledega National Forest (also referred to as Choccolocco Management Area), and crosses through Calhoun, Talladega, and Cleburne counties, in central

Alabama Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...

.''Choccolocco Creek''
webpage; Choccolocco Creek Watershed Organization; accessed January 2023

Hydrology and etymology

The headwaters of the creek are located in the

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, are a mountain range in eastern to northeastern North America. The term "Appalachian" refers to several different regions associated with the mountain range, and its surrounding terrain ...

near Liberty Hill, Alabama, in the

Talladega National Forest The Talladega National Forest is located in the U.S. state of Alabama and covers 392,567 acres (613.39 sq mi, or 1,588.66 km2) at the southern edge of the Appalachian Mountains. Before it was bought by the federal government in the 1930s, ...

. The origin of the creek's name is from the

Muskogean Muskogean ( ; also Muskhogean) is a language family spoken in the Southeastern United States. Members of the family are Indigenous Languages of the Americas. Typologically, Muskogean languages are highly synthetic and agglutinative. One docume ...

''chahko lago'', meaning "big shoals" or "big house".''Choccolocco State Forest''
webpage; Alabama State Government; accessed January 2023

Ancient sites

The Choccolocco Creek Archaeological Complex near Boiling Spring, Alabama,
newspaper article; Robinson, Bessie Coleman; "Boiling Spring"; via The Anniston Times, December 30, 1932. via Appalachian History Net; accessed January 2023 contains the remains of at least one temple and three burial mounds, and is an important piece of the history of early

Middle Woodland In the classification of archaeological cultures of North America, the Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures spanned a period from roughly 1000 BC to European contact in the eastern part of North America, with some arch ...

period inhabitants in the area."Alabama Mounds : The Choccolocco Creek Archaeological Complex"
Alabama Indigenous Mound Trail website; accessed January 2023 There are indications of land usage along the creek stretching back to the Archaic Period (8,000 BC), that includes evidence of extended habitation by the

Mound Builders Many pre-Columbian cultures in North America were collectively termed "Mound Builders", but the term has no formal meaning. It does not refer to specific people or archaeological culture but refers to the characteristic mound earthworks that in ...

and peoples of the

Mississippian culture The Mississippian culture was a collection of Native American societies that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 to 1600 CE, varying regionally. It was known for building la ...

. Creek Chief

Selocta Chinnabby Selocta Chinnabby (c. 1765—October 15, 1834 or February 10, 1835) was a Muscogee and Natchez chief from present-day Talladega County, Alabama. He allied himself with Andrew Jackson in fighting the Red Sticks in the Creek War, which was part ...

's village was located on the north shore of Choccolocco Creek near the influx of Wolfskull Creek, An ally of the U.S., and a friend to

Andrew Jackson Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before Presidency of Andrew Jackson, his presidency, he rose to fame as a general in the U.S. Army and served in both houses ...

during the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States United States declaration of war on the Uni ...

, in 1813 he and his tribe helped build a defensive stockade just three miles north of the settlement. Completed in 1813, the fort was known as Fort Chinnabee. Another Native American village further down stream, Estaboga, means "where the people reside" in the Muscogee language. It is today an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Talladega County. Following the Indian Removal of 1836, the creek valley was quickly settled by White settlers.

Condition

The creek is home to over 70 species, several of which are endangered, including the pygmy sculpin (''Cottus paulus''), the holiday darter (''Etheostoma brevirostrum''), and the blue shiner (''Cyprinella caerulea''). The wicker ancylid (''Rhodacmea filosa'')—a

freshwater snail Freshwater snails are gastropod mollusks that live in fresh water. There are many different families. They are found throughout the world in various habitats, ranging from ephemeral pools to the largest lakes, and from small seeps and springs t ...

once thought extinct —was surprisingly (due to episodic heavy

water pollution Water pollution (or aquatic pollution) is the contamination of Body of water, water bodies, with a negative impact on their uses. It is usually a result of human activities. Water bodies include lakes, rivers, oceans, aquifers, reservoirs and ...

events on the waterway) found in the creek in 2011, and is still extant as of 2023.Meade, Mark; O'Kelley, Jeffrey; Scull, Greg; and Turner, Josh; ''Fish Assemblages in Talladega National Forest's Choccolocco, Shoal, and Scarbrough Creeks''; Southeastern Naturalist 8:677-686; (2009).Ó Foighil D., Li J., Lee T., Johnson P., Evans R. & Burch J. B.; "Conservation Genetics of a Critically Endangered Limpet Genus and Rediscovery of an Extinct Species"; via '' PLoS ONE''; volume 6, (5): e20496; (2011); . Environmental concerns in creek pollution have been focused primarily on discharges of Polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs) into Snow Creek, a feeder stream of the Choccolocco, from the

Monsanto The Monsanto Company () was an American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation founded in 1901 and headquartered in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Monsanto's best-known product is Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide, developed ...

plant that had operated at

Anniston, Alabama Anniston is a city and the county seat of Calhoun County, Alabama, Calhoun County in Alabama, United States, and is one of two urban centers/principal cities of and included in the Anniston–Oxford metropolitan area, Anniston–Oxford Metropo ...

from 1935 to 1971. The dumping and discharges have badly damaged the creek's ecosystem. There were still signs of continuing damage through at least 2007.''Preliminary Evaluation of the Effects of''
via www.cerc.usgs.gov/orda_docs/DocHandler.ashx?task=get&ID=1219; PDF download; accessed January 2023

Notes

References

{{Reflist Alabama River Alabama placenames of Native American origin Calhoun County, Alabama Talladega County, Alabama Cleburne County, Alabama Clay County, Alabama

Hydrology and etymology

Ancient sites

Condition

See also

Notes

References