Gourdsville was one of the earliest settlements in Limestone County, a rough camp of shanties established by intruders on Chickasaw lands who were driven back to the Tennessee line by U.S. soldiers from Fort Hampton in 1809, 1810, and 1811. According to local tradition, its colorful name came from an enterprising settler who operated a still and sold corn liquor in gourds because no other small serving containers were available, dispensing it from a bar made of long boards or smoothed logs supported by barrels, while the trails to and from the place were said to be strewn with broken gourds. Nearby, Gilbertsboro developed from the settlement of the Gilbert family, descended from Revolutionary War patriot Caleb Gilbert, whose son Thomas Gilbert and Thomas's sons Carey and David relocated their families from South Carolina to northwest Limestone County about 1828 and farmed there. David Gilbert, called "Major" in Thomas Hobbs's diary because of his Alabama Militia service, survived six wives and married a seventh before his death in 1871. His sons George A. Gilbert, Dr. Van Gilbert, and Thomas H. Gilbert all served in the Confederate Army, and descendants of the family became among the most prominent citizens of Athens and Limestone County.