Old Indian trails leading to the Mulberry River were still fresh when a few dirt farmers began settling just west of what is now Hanceville, and from the beginning a steady stream of settlers, many of them German and Irish refugees, was attracted to the new settlement. The L&N Railroad Company built a railroad across Cullman County, with the link connecting Cullman and Hanceville completed around 1873. Within two months of the railroad’s arrival, P.H. Kinney helped form the nucleus of a new town by establishing a post office some miles south of Holmes Gap, first named Gilmer. As first postmaster, Kinney changed the town’s name by order of the U.S. Postal Service because another town in the state already bore the name Gilmer, and he honored his father, Hance Kinney, by naming the town for him. Hanceville’s rapid population growth and prosperity made it a leading contender for county seat, but after urging by a Cullman delegation, the Alabama Legislature ordered the boundary line drawn down the center of town, officially leaving half of Hanceville in Blount County and preventing it from voting in the coming election for county seat and governing officials. Hanceville was incorporated in Blount County on May 28, 1879, as ordered and decreed by the court. In 1885 the boundary lines were moved a mile north, placing Hanceville entirely in Blount County, and in 1912 the lines were redrawn along the Mulberry River, placing Hanceville and several other communities to the south in Cullman County.