The town of Fort Payne was named for the old fort built by Captain John G. Payne. Captain Payne was commissioned on October 21, 1836, 
in the 3rd Division, 6th Brigade, 64th Alabama Regiment and was appointed as an agent for removal of Cherokee Indians in 1838.
General Winfield Scott had issued the orders to round up the remaining Indians and to place them in stockades until they coule be moved to the west. The hewn-log cabin and stockade which Captain Payne built near Willstown, on a site now in the middle of Fort Payne, were described in Volume V of the The DeKalb Legend. The picture above shows the fort prior to being torn down in 1946. The chimney still stands between Third and Fifth Streets SE. Photo by Maitland Davidson.
The fort's chimney as it looks today.
For many years following the boom the cabin was used as part of the Curran Mitchell family home. Mitchell and his bride of less than a year, the former Julia Morrison, came here to help build the DeKalb Hotel. They bought Captain Payne's former headquarters in 1888 from a Mr. Campbell. Already connected to the old fort by a dogtrot was another cabin, formerly used as a saloon in south Fort Payne, and moved during the 1870's. Mitchell did further remodeling after his purchase. The photo below shows Curran Mitchell's daughter, Julia Mitchell Sherman holding her daughter (also named Julia) in 1919 at the corner of Payne's cabin.
