Cottondale

Cottondale is on Farm Road 2123 ten miles southwest of Decatur in south central Wise County. Its settlement began in the early 1850s, and it is one of the oldest communities in the county. B. F. Banks, a local landowner, offered to provide land to anyone who would build a house or business on it. When one of the early settlers, John Bridges, the town's blacksmith, planted cotton near the banks of Salt Creek and had a plentiful crop, residents began referring to the area as Cotton Valley. The rapid growth of the community prompted a request for postal service, and because the name Cotton Valley was already in use by another town, postal authorities substituted the designation Cottondale. The Cottondale post office was established in 1875. The town's growth was limited both because it was bypassed by the railroads and because area cotton production declined. The Cottondale post office closed in 1912, and the town's only school closed in 1933. Cottondale's population was reported as eighty-seven from the early 1930s through the late 1940s, when it dropped to twenty. In the mid-1960s it rose to seventy-five and was reported at that level in 1967, after which no further statistics were available. The 1984 county highway map showed three churches in the vicinity of Cottondale.