Settled during the mid-1830s, this community was first called Fulford’s Cross Roads, then Missouri Cross Roads when a post office was established here in 1846. The name Perote, adopted in 1850, was suggested by veterans returning from the Mexican War of 1846-48, who remembered a citadel in Mexico by that name. Incorporation followed in 1858. Early settlers, who came primarily from the Carolinas and Georgia, included the Sellers, Crossley, Blue, Locke, Peach, Hixon, Culver, Johnson, Adair, Ardis, McCall, Rumph, Brabham, Miles, Cameron, Starke, Wilson, Walker, and Ivey families. Methodist and Baptist churches were among the first structures in the community, and much of its social life centered there, including protracted meetings, or revivals. Perote grew rapidly in the 1850s, and by 1860 it was a thriving community with several doctors, stores, a carriage factory, a Masonic lodge, and a school. At the beginning of the War Between the States in 1861-65, the school had about 150 students, and many of its young men served in the Perote Guards, organized in 1859 as war clouds gathered. They went to war as part of the 1st Alabama Infantry Regiment with uniforms and a flag handmade by the women they left behind. After the war, the community declined as cotton cultivation, the area’s traditional leading economic pursuit, receded in importance. Bypassed by the railroad and struck by several disastrous fires, Perote suffered a steady decline in business activity and population.