Founded in the 1830s as Opelikan and respelled Opelika in 1850, Opelika grew from a railroad town into a regional center of commerce and industry. In 1851, the Montgomery & West Point Railroad Company extended its rail line from Montgomery through Opelika to West Point, Georgia, creating the only direct rail route between New Orleans and the Eastern Seaboard. This transportation network spurred rapid growth, with warehouses built to store cotton and other goods, and after incorporation on February 9, 1854, additional rail connections to Columbus, Georgia, in 1855 and to Birmingham a few years later strengthened its role as a commercial hub. During the Civil War, its warehouses served as Confederate supply depots until Union raids in 1864 and 1865 under Lovell Rousseau and James Wilson tore up the railroads and destroyed the warehouses. In 1866, Opelika became the county seat of newly formed Lee County. Industrial development followed, beginning with the opening of Opelika Cotton Mill in 1900 as the city's first textile plant, then expanding in the 1950s with the nation's first and largest magnetic tape manufacturing plant and in 1963 with a major Uniroyal tire plant. By the early 1970s, local industries employed nearly 10,000 people, and from the late 1970s to 2005 non-agricultural employment grew slowly but steadily. Opelika's history also included a wide range of local businesses, shopping destinations, and everyday gathering places that shaped community life.