In 1902 the settlement that would become Aliceville was founded with the opening of a single store. The city was named in honor of the wife of John T. Cochrane, founder of the Alabama, Tennessee and Northern Railroad and moving force behind the construction of the short line from Carrollton, Alabama to Aliceville. Within two years of the completion of the short line, Aliceville had grown to what the "Montgomery Advertiser" called in 1905 "a town of considerable pretensions. There are about a dozen stores, a bank, public buildings and numerous enterprises."