Strategically located at the juncture of 19th-century roads from Georgia and Tennessee, Dadeville was first charted in 1837. The next year, it was designated the seat of justice for Tallapoosa County, one of a number of counties created in 1832 out of the Creek Indian cession of that year. The town was named for Major Francis Longhorne Dade, killed in the Seminole War. Its main thoroughfare bears the name of John H. Broadnax, who first surveyed the town in April 1836. Dadeville was the site for the United States/Dennis Hotel, which hosted famed 19th-century humorist Johnson Jones Hooper while he compiled the stories included in The Adventures of Simon Suggs. The city was home to Graefenberg Medical Institute (1852-1861), first medical school in Alabama, and the location of Tallapoosa County's first high school, which opened in 1910.