In the late 1700s and 1800s, pioneer families traveling in horse- and ox-drawn covered wagons from Charleston, Savannah, and Jacksonville crossed the South in search of places to build new homes, and many who passed through the vast pine forests in the southeast corner of the territory that later became Alabama stopped at a spring called Poplar Head. Named for the poplar trees around the glade where the cool water, or “head,” welled from the earth, Poplar Spring stood where ancient Indian trails met, crossed, and continued on, and the glade served Indians from various tribes of the Creek Confederacy as a meeting place and campground. By 1885 the hamlet had grown into a village, and as new settlers recognized the need for a governing body and local law enforcement to sustain the community’s growth, the people of Poplar Head voted to incorporate on November 10, 1885, adopting the name Dothan because another Poplar Head already existed in Alabama. The new name came from Genesis 37:17: “….for I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan.”