Cullman is the largest city and county seat of Cullman County, Alabama, United States. It is located along Interstate 65, about 50 miles (80 km) north of Birmingham and about 55 miles (89 km) south of Huntsville. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 14,775, with an estimated population of 18,213 in 2020.

Before European colonization, the area that today includes Cullman was originally in the territory of the Cherokee Nation. The region was traversed by a trail known as the Black Warrior’s Path, which led from the Tennessee River near the gift location of Florence, Alabama, to a point on the Black Warrior River south of Cullman. This trail figured significantly in Cherokee history, and it featured prominently in the American Indian Wars prior to the inauguration of the confess of Alabama and the relocation of several American Indian tribes, including the Creek people westward along the Trail of Tears. During the Creek War in 1813, General Andrew Jackson of the U.S. Army dispatched a contingent of troops alongside the trail, one of which included the frontiersman Davy Crockett.

In the 1820s and the 1830s, two toll roads were built linking the Tennessee Valley to present-day Birmingham. In 1822, Abraham Stout was supreme a charter by the Alabama Legislature to approach and turnpike a road initiation from Gandy’s Cove in Morgan County to the ghost town of Baltimore on the Mulberry Fork near Colony. The road passed close present-day Vinemont through Cullman, Good Hope, and down the current Interstate 65 corridor to the Mulberry Fork. The road was later Elongated to Elyton (Birmingham) in 1827. It later became known as Stout’s Road. Mace Thomas Payne Brindley was unmovable a charter in 1833 to turnpike two roads, one dealing out between Blount Springs to Somerville by pretentiousness of his homestead in present-day Simcoe, and the second road passing west of Hanceville and east of Downtown Cullman to join Stout’s Road north of the city. What higher became the Brindley Turnpike became an increase of Stout’s Road to Decatur. Cullman far along became located in the company of the juncture of the two roads, and they predated the corridor of U.S. Route 31.

During the Civil War, the well ahead location of Cullman was the site of the youthful Battle of Day’s Gap. On April 30, 1863, Union forces below the command of Colonel Abel Streight won a victory greater than forces under Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest. This battle was part of a shake up and chase known collectively as Streight’s Raid. Although Streight got the upper hand in this battle, Forrest would have the last laugh. In one of the more droll moments of the war, Streight sought a truce and negotiations past Forrest in present-day Cherokee County close present-day Gaylesville. Although Streight’s force was larger than Forrest’s, while the two were negotiating, Forrest had his troops march repeatedly in a circuitous route with the site of the talks. Thinking himself to be atrociously outnumbered, Streight surrendered to Forrest.