The Central of Georgia Railroad completed a track spur connecting Eufaula, Alabama and Ozark, Alabama in the spring of 1890, and the present site of Clio, Alabama began as a water station known as Adkison Head. Old Clio had been a small settlement with a few established businesses a few miles east near Judy Creek, but after the railroad was built, the owners of those establishments moved nearer the tracks for shipping convenience, and the new settlement grew. According to Barbour County probate records, on June 10, 1890, a group of twenty adult male inhabitants petitioned to incorporate the settlement under the name Clio, with corporate limits extending three-fourths of a mile north, south, east, and west from the center of the crossing where the Marianna public road crossed the Elba public road. A second petition was filed by a group including the majority of the real estate owners within those limits. As a result, an election was ordered for July 12, 1890, at the M.A. Martin Store, where twenty-five votes were cast for incorporation and none against it. On July 17, 1890, R. H. Alston, Judge of Probate of Barbour County, Alabama, declared the town of Clio incorporated.