The small village of Coffeetown, southeast of what is now Langston, was established in the 1810s and faded away in 1869 when most of its residents moved to Texas. At that time James Morgan sold 15 acres in town lots and the town of Langston was born, named for Langston Coffee, the first postmaster. Langston prospered when river transportation thrived in the 1800s and early 1900s, and it once had five physicians, a livery stable, stores, a jail, a school, a Masonic lodge, a movie theater, several churches, a post office, a blacksmith shop, a grist mill, and a steam operated cotton gin. The TVA project that built Guntersville Dam in 1938 flooded this once prosperous town and forced those who lived within the TVA boundaries to move, leaving the skeleton of what had been a thriving community.