Sand Mountain is a

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

plateau In geology and physical geography, a plateau (; ; : plateaus or plateaux), also called a high plain or a tableland, is an area of a highland consisting of flat terrain that is raised sharply above the surrounding area on at least one side. ...

in northeastern

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 ...

and (to a far lesser extent) northwestern

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

and southeastern

Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

where the plateau is known as Raccoon Mountain and Elder Mountain. It is part of the southern tip of the Appalachian mountain chain and it is the largest plateau in the chain. Geologically a continuation of

Walden Ridge Walden Ridge (or Walden's Ridge) is a mountain ridge and escarpment located in Tennessee in the United States. It marks the eastern edge of the Cumberland Plateau and is generally considered part of it. Walden Ridge is about long, running genera ...

, Sand Mountain is part of the

Cumberland Plateau The Cumberland Plateau is the southern part of the Appalachian Plateau in the Appalachian Mountains of the United States. It includes much of eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, and portions of northern Alabama and northwest Georgia. The terms " Al ...

, separated from the main portion of the plateau by the

Tennessee River The Tennessee River is a long river located in the Southern United States, southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. Flowing through the states of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, it begins at the confluence of Fren ...

and Sequatchie Valley. The average elevation on Sand Mountain is around above sea level, compared to about in the surrounding area.Google Earth This elevation leads to its having the coolest climate in the state of Alabama. The largest city on Sand Mountain is

Albertville Albertville (; Franco-Provençal, Arpitan: ''Arbèrtvile'') is a Subprefectures in France, subprefecture of the Savoie Departments of France, department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Regions of France, region in Southeastern France. It is best k ...

, in Marshall County. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 22,386.

History

Prehistory through the Colonial Period

The Sand Mountain area has been inhabited for at least 9,000 years, as evidenced by archaeological finds at nearby Russell Cave National Monument, near Bridgeport, Alabama. In historical times,

Cherokee The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern ...

and Creek villages were located in the

Tennessee Valley The Tennessee Valley is the drainage basin of the Tennessee River and is largely within the U.S. state of Tennessee. It stretches from southwest Kentucky to north Alabama and from northeast Mississippi to the mountains of Virginia and North C ...

to the west of Sand Mountain, and in Wills Valley to the east.

Sequoyah Sequoyah ( ; , , or , , ; 1770 – August 1843), also known as George Gist or George Guess, was a Native American polymath and Constructed script, neographer of the Cherokee Nation. In 1821, Sequoyah completed his Cherokee syllabary, enabl ...

, creator of the Cherokee syllabary, lived in the Cherokee village of Wills Town, near present-day Fort Payne in Wills Valley. The first Europeans to see it were probably Spanish explorer

Hernando de Soto Hernando de Soto (; ; 1497 – 21 May 1542) was a Spanish explorer and conquistador who was involved in expeditions in Nicaragua and the Yucatan Peninsula. He played an important role in Francisco Pizarro's conquest of the Inca Empire in Peru, ...

and his men, who are believed to have crossed Sand Mountain during their journey through southeastern North America between 1539 and 1543. One of the likely routes for the expedition traces their path across Sand Mountain on the way south from the Tennessee Valley to the Coosa Valley.

Civil War

Union troops under Major General George H. Thomas crossed Sand Mountain in September 1863 in an attempt to cut off the Confederate troops in

Chattanooga Chattanooga ( ) is a city in Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. It is located along the Tennessee River and borders Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the south. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, it is Tennessee ...

. They were unsuccessful, and the opposing armies met at the Battle of Chickamauga on September 19–20, 1863, resulting in a major Confederate victory. Jackson and DeKalb counties, along with the other counties of north Alabama, had voted against immediate secession in December 1860, and pro-Union sentiment remained strong on Sand Mountain. In early 1861, citizens in several northeastern counties proposed breaking away from Alabama and joining with neighboring counties of East Tennessee to create a new Union state of Nickajack. Industries such as mining, milling, and working for the railroad were acceptable as exemptions to military service for Southern unionists, and some on Sand Mountain who did not wish to serve in the army worked at Sauta Cave in the Tennessee Valley, mining

potassium nitrate Potassium nitrate is a chemical compound with a sharp, salty, bitter taste and the chemical formula . It is a potassium salt of nitric acid. This salt consists of potassium cations and nitrate anions , and is therefore an alkali metal nit ...

to make gunpowder at Selma. In September 1861, the "Paint Rock Rifles" were raised on Sand Mountain by Confederate Colonel Lemuel Green Mead of Jackson County. They became Company C of the 26th Alabama Infantry Regiment, and served with distinction at the

Battle of Shiloh The Battle of Shiloh, also known as the Battle of Pittsburg Landing, was a major battle in the American Civil War fought on April 6–7, 1862. The fighting took place in southwestern Tennessee, which was part of the war's Western Theater of the ...

in April 1862. Mead resigned his infantry commission in July 1862, after Union troops had invaded north Alabama, and organized an independent company of partisan rangers who carried out guerrilla raids against occupying Union forces. The company was the core of what eventually became Mead's Alabama and Tennessee Cavalry Battalion. In the summer of 1862, "Gunter's 1st Partisan Ranger Battalion" was formed on Sand Mountain in Jackson County by Major William T. Gunter. The battalion consisted of five mounted companies and served under Lieutenant General

Nathan Bedford Forrest Nathan Bedford Forrest (July 13, 1821October 29, 1877) was an List of slave traders of the United States, American slave trader, active in the lower Mississippi River valley, who served as a General officers in the Confederate States Army, Con ...

in skirmishes along the Tennessee River. In November 1862, the battalion was merged with the 33rd Alabama Infantry Regiment. A Union regiment, the 1st Tennessee and Alabama Vidette Cavalry, was formed at Union-occupied Stevenson, Alabama, in 1863, drawing men primarily from Sand Mountain, many of them Confederate deserters. However, the regiment was never all together and the companies were scattered around the area on guard duty. It was eventually disbanded before the end of the war.

20th century

Sand Mountain was home, from 1903 to 1905, to a short-lived commune of forty Russian Jewish families attempting to form a collective farm and manufacturing concern. Due to the isolation of the area from other Jewish communities, the limestone soil of the area, and disharmony within the group, the project was abandoned and the inhabitants relocated after two years.

Geography

Sand Mountain runs in a diagonal northeast-southwest direction from the northeastern corner of Alabama, and includes parts of Jackson, DeKalb,

Marshall Marshall may refer to: Places Australia *Marshall, Victoria, a suburb of Geelong, Victoria ** Marshall railway station Canada * Marshall, Saskatchewan * The Marshall, a mountain in British Columbia Liberia * Marshall, Liberia Marshall Is ...

, Etowah and Blount counties in Alabama, as well as part of Dade County, Georgia. Sand Mountain, especially the northern end, i.e. eastern Jackson County and northern DeKalb County, is mostly a rural, agricultural area, with a mix of chicken, cow, and potato farms, as well as other assorted farms, and large expanses of both rolling pastures and forests. It contains many small towns (less than 1,000 people) and unincorporated communities.

Current issues and social characteristics

Politically and religiously, Sand Mountain is a fairly conservative place, consistently voting for conservative candidates in elections, and with

Baptists Baptists are a Christian denomination, denomination within Protestant Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by complete Immersion baptism, immersion. Baptist churches ge ...

claiming the largest number of congregants of any church denomination. Much of Sand Mountain is dry, with the sale of alcoholic beverages being forbidden. Sand Mountain is one of the last places in the country with churches which still use

Sacred Harp Sacred Harp singing is a tradition of sacred choral music which developed in New England and perpetuated in the American South. The name is derived from ''The Sacred Harp'', a historically important shape notes, shape-note tunebook printed in ...

singing in their Sunday morning church services, and is home to many of the largest and oldest continuous Sacred Harp singings in the country, as well as many important singers (i.e. editors of the Sacred Harp tunebook). Snake handling by some churches on Sand Mountain was the subject of '' Salvation on Sand Mountain'', a 1996 book by Dennis Covington. Those who live on Sand Mountain state that the book mostly took place in Scottsboro, in the Tennessee River valley to the west of Sand Mountain.

Climate

Sand Mountain, being located in the mid-South, has long hot humid summers, and winters which are short and mild by comparison to much of the rest of the country, with snow being a real rarity. Its elevation, however, leads to it being cooler than the rest of the state of Alabama. On Sand Mountain, between 60 and 90 days per year are over , according to the Heat Zone Map published by the American Horticultural Society. By comparison, the great majority of the upper Midwest and Northeast has less than 30 such days per year. These hot days, combined with the South's high humidity, make it sweltering in the summer. The average daytime temperature is in the high 70s or above for at least five months out of the year (May through September). Sand Mountain has higher rainfall than almost anywhere else in the South, including anywhere else in Alabama, with the exception of the

Gulf Coast The Gulf Coast of the United States, also known as the Gulf South or the South Coast, is the coastline along the Southern United States where they meet the Gulf of Mexico. The coastal states that have a shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico are Tex ...

area. Some areas of Sand Mountain get more than of rainfall per year (though others get as little as ). The following is a general idea of Sand Mountain's climate, taken from Ider, Alabama:

Soil

Sand Mountain has, on average, a depth of soil - after which is solid

bedrock In geology, bedrock is solid rock that lies under loose material ( regolith) within the crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet. Definition Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface material. An exposed portion of bed ...

. The soil is generally

loam Loam (in geology and soil science) is soil composed mostly of sand (particle size > ), silt (particle size > ), and a smaller amount of clay (particle size < ). By weight, its mineral composition is about 40–40–20% concentration of sand–si ...

-based, and is a mixture of sandy loam and silty loam, drawing from such

series Series may refer to: People with the name * Caroline Series (born 1951), English mathematician, daughter of George Series * George Series (1920–1995), English physicist Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Series, the ordered sets used i ...

as Apison, Atkins, Cotaco-Barbourville, Crossville, Hartsells, Lickdale, and Muskingum. It is extremely acidic, growing more so the deeper you go from the top. It is classified as "well-drained".

Settlements located on Sand Mountain

Jackson County

* Browntown * Bryant * Central * Davistown * Dutton * Eliza * Fabius * Fair View * Flat Rock * Higdon * Liberty Hill * Macedonia * Overlook * Pisgah * Rosalie * Section * Shrader

DeKalb County

* Blake * Brooks Crossroads * Cartersville * Council Bluff * Crossville * Dawson * Elliott Crossroads * Five Forks * Fort Payne * Fyffe * Geraldine * Grove Oak *

Guest A guest is person who is given hospitality. Guest or The Guest may refer to: * Guest (surname), people with the surname ''Guest'' * USS ''Guest'' (DD-472), U.S. Navy ''Fletcher''-class destroyer 1942–1946 * Guest appearance, guest actor, guest ...

* Henagar * High Point * Horton shanna * Ider * Kilpatrick * Lakeview * Lathamville * Liberty * Old Blevins Mill * Plainview * Powell * Rainsville * Shiloh * Skaggs Corner * Sylvania * Ten Broeck * Townson Crossroads * Whiton

Marshall County

* Asbury * Boaz (partially located in Etowah County) * Douglas *

Guntersville Guntersville (previously known as Gunter's Ferry and later Gunter's Landing) is a city and the county seat of Marshall County, Alabama, Marshall County, Alabama, United States. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of th ...

(only partially located on Sand Mountain)

Etowah County

* Sardis City

Blount County

* Oneonta (only partially located on Sand Mountain) * Snead * Susan Moore

References

{{Coord, 34, 27, N, 86, 00, W, dim:200000_region:US, display=title Mountains of Alabama Landforms of Jackson County, Alabama Landforms of DeKalb County, Alabama Landforms of Etowah County, Alabama Landforms of Blount County, Alabama Landforms of Dade County, Georgia Plateaus of the United States Mountains of Georgia (U.S. state) Russian-Jewish culture in the United States