Pell City was founded by railroad investors and incorporated on May 6, 1891. It was named for George Hamilton Pell of New York, one of its financial backers. After nearly disappearing following the panic of 1893, the town was redeveloped after 1901 by Sumter Cogswell and his wife, Lydia DeGaris Cogswell, together with other local investors and businessmen. Cogswell influenced the location of the Pell City Manufacturing Company here in 1902, later Avondale Mills, and the town’s prosperity was secured after that time. The historic district includes two long blocks along Cogswell Avenue from Nineteenth Street to Twenty-first Street and several buildings on Nineteenth and Twenty-first Streets North and Twentieth Street South. The only building to survive the earlier period was the Maxwell Building, constructed in 1890, and most of the historic structures were built between 1902 and 1903. The downtown district was added to the National Register of Historic Places on Cotober 29, 2001.