Louisville, one of the oldest communities in southeastern Alabama, stands in territory ceded by the Creeks in the Treaty of Fort Jackson in 1814 ending the Creek War, and was settled by Americans as early as 1817. Many early settlers were of Scotch-Irish ancestry and came from North Carolina, making this part of Barbour County known as "Little Scotland." According to tradition, the town was first called "Lewisville" for early settler Daniel Lewis, who is reputed to have built the first house there. By the Second Creek War, Louisville had become an important regional economic and population center, with several stores, many fine homes, an inn, and three prominent churches among the earliest in Barbour County: Bethlehem Baptist Church, Pea River Presbyterian Church, and Louisville Methodist Church. Louisville served as the county seat of Pike County from its formation in 1821 until 1827, when the seat moved to Monticello, and after Barbour County was created in 1832, it became that county's temporary seat, where two sessions of circuit court were held in 1833 in a simple wooden courthouse before the government moved to Clayton. Barbour County was created in December 1832 from the remnants of the Creek domain and part of Pike County, and because its boundaries were bisected by the old Creek-American boundary set in 1814, the western portion containing Louisville was known as "old Alabama" while the newer portion was called "new Alabama." Under the 1832 Treaty of Cusseta, Creeks in Alabama were to retain ownership of their remaining ancestral lands for up to five years while deciding whether to stay as U.S. citizens or sell their land and remove west, but an extension law passed that same year extended Alabama's legal jurisdiction over the Creek domain and created several counties there.