At a crossroads one mile south of Helena, a post office called Cove was established in 1849 and renamed Hillsboro in 1857. During the Civil War, the South & North Railroad, the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, was constructed to just north of Hillsboro on Buck Creek to facilitate shipping coal and iron from nearby mines and iron works. The construction engineer, Peter Boyle, married Helen Lee, daughter of early settler Needham Lee Jr., and named the railhead Helena Station in her honor. Union raiders under Gen. J. H. Wilson stormed through the area on March 29-30, 1865, destroying mines, mills, and furnaces. The post office moved to Helena in 1872 following the post-war revival of industry. Mining engineer Joseph Squire surveyed the town into lots and streets in 1875, and it was incorporated in 1877 with M. H. Williams as mayor. By 1910, the town included four mercantile stores, two meat markets, two liveries, three doctors, a millinery, and a coal and a steel company, and it served as the commercial center for neighboring mining communities such as Roebuck, Coalmont, Falliston, Mossboro, Zenida, Straven, and Acton. The first metal bridge over Buck Creek was erected in 1911. The present concrete dam was completed c. 1913, furnishing water power that generated the town’s first electricity and allowed installation of the first telephone service, operated by C. T. Davidson, son of early settler John W. Davidson. On May 5, 1933, a devastating tornado destroyed many of Helena’s early buildings, killed 12 people, and injured 75. Alabama Governor Rufus Wills Cobb, in office from 1878 to 1882, was a resident of Helena and a charter member of the Helena Masonic Lodge, founded in 1876.