Lynches Chapel

Lynches Chapel was six miles west of Alto in southwestern Cherokee County. The site was first settled in the late 1840s or early 1850s by immigrants from the Old South. A Methodist Episcopal church, founded around 1860 and known as Lynches Chapel, became the focus of the community. A school, Hendrick School, operated in the community from 1884 to 1916. In the mid-1930s Lynches Chapel comprised the church, a sawmill, a cotton gin, a gristmill, a furniture shop, and a number of houses. After World War II many of the residents left the area, but in the 1990s the church and a few scattered dwellings still remained.