While Pike Road has only existed as a municipality since 1997, the Pike Road community has flourished for over 175 years. Beginning with the arrival of the Meriwether, Mathews and Marks families around 1815, people began settling and farming the area in the mid-nineteenth century. As more families moved in, more services were needed, and by the early twentieth century, a booming small town had grown up at the intersection of Pike Road and Meriwether Road. Pike Road got its name because one had to pay a toll, or pike, to travel on it. The crossroads community was referred to as the Pike Road community because of its location on the heavily traveled highway. The main intersection was home to several businesses, including cotton gins, a hardware store, livestock auction, post office, general store and doctors’ offices. Two of the buildings which once housed these early enterprises still stand near the original town center and across Pike Road from the current Town Hall.
The twentieth century brought continued population growth to Pike Road. While children’s education had been handled by the individual families up to this point, the need for a consolidated public school was imminent. By 1918, the people of the community had raised the money and procured the land for the schoolhouse, and the Pike Road Consolidated School opened in 1919. The school became a center for community activities and remained so until its close in 1970.
The close of the Pike Road School was just one of many changes that took place in the Pike Road area in the 1970s. With the growth of the City of Montgomery came new challenges for the quiet, peaceful farming community. Residents realized that without local control over zoning regulations, their pristine surroundings and way of life might be lost forever if the area were annexed. More...
