Woodstock

Town of Woodstock
Incorporated	1996
Population	1,428
Mayor	Jeff Dodson
School district	Bibb County Schools
Government	Woodstock Town Council Woodstock Fire Department Woodstock Police Department
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Woodstock (formerly North Bibb) is a town of 1,428 on 7.2 square miles straddling northern Bibb County and southern Tuscaloosa County, where Eastern Valley Road terminates into Alabama State Highway 5, and Highway 5 terminates into U.S. Highway 11. It is accessed from I-59/20 via Exit 97. The town was incorporated in 1996 and adopted its present name on October 1, 2000, following a public referendum.

The land on which the town developed was granted to William Houston on February 27, 1826. He and his family founded a community along the Tuscaloosa to Huntsville stage coach route. When the Alabama & Chattanooga Railroad reached the community in 1870, J. U. Ray constructed a depot which he named "Woodstock" for the town in Oxfordshire where his ancestors had lived. Two years later the town became a junction for that line and a branch running to the coal mines at West Blocton. Storage yards were constructed.

In 1872 Welsh-born engineer Giles Edwards constructed a blast furnace at Woodstock to take advantage of the available materials. Edwards later partnered with his son-in-law, James McQueen, who eventually became president of the Sloss-Sheffield Iron Company.

The Woodstock Town Council has five members. Ty Corbell, Ernestine Johnson, Jerry Beams, Danny Frederick and Don Bowling were sworn in along with Mayor Jeff Dodson in November 2016. Tiffany McCulley is Town Clerk and Len Price is Chief of the Woodstock Police Department. Another industry, a jug factory, appeared in the 1880s. A newspaper published in Woodstock moved to Six Mile and from there to Birmingham, providing the foundation of the Birmingham News.

In 2017 Woodstock was featured in the popular podcast "S-Town", which centered on the life and legacy of long-time resident John McLemore.

Demographics

Woodstock straddles two Metropolitan Statistical Areas, with its Bibb county residents counted in the Birmingham-Hoover MSA and its Tuscaloosa County residents in the Tuscaloosa MSA.

As of the 2010 census, there were 1,428 people, 507 households, and 395 families residing in the town. The population density was 202 people per square mile. There were 549 housing units at an average density of 76.3 per square mile. The racial makeup of the town was 93% White and 3.4% Black with 2.1% of the population Hispanic or Latino of any race.

Of the 507 households, 34.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 61.9% were married couples living together, 10.3% had a female householder with no husband present, and 22.1% were non-families. 16.8% of all households were made up of individuals and 5.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.79 and the average family size was 3.13.

In the town, the population was spread out with 26.9% under the age of 18, 8.3% from 18 to 24, 29.3% from 25 to 44, 25.4% from 45 to 64, and 10.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35.7 years. For every 100 females there were 100.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 100.4 males.

The median income for a household in the town was $48,750, and the median income for a family was $52,417. Males had a median income of $42,500 versus $32,885 for females. The per capita income for the town was $20,855. About 8.0% of families and 9.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 8.7% of those under age 18 and 5.9% of those age 65 or over.

Between 2000 and 2010, Woodstock increased its land area through annexation by 157%, from 2.8 to 7.2 square miles. Its population also grew by 45% over that period, from 986 to 1,428. The Census Bureau's estimate of Woodstock's population in 2015 is 1,547.

Mayors

• Carl Jones, 1996-2000
• S. B. Albert Hutchens, 2000-
• Jeff Dodson, 2016-

References

• "Woodstock, Alabama" (May 9, 2017) Wikipedia - accessed May 11, 2017