[2][3][4][5][6] AHS was erected in order to relieve overcrowding at Decatur High School, located in the southeastern part of town.

Decatur underwent a massive growth in population in the 20 or so years after World War II due to the rapid development of manufacturing plants and jobs, along with support businesses, usually entailing, as elsewhere, young families.

Then, almost all of the city's black population resided west of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, which then bisected Decatur's high school districts.

In 2018, the school system, in a massive realignment of school districting due to population shifts within the city away from the central parts of Decatur, opened a new AHS campus on Modaus Road several miles outside the Alabama Highway 67 bypass (locally known as the "Beltline"), replacing the original location on Danville Road Southwest.

[8] A similar shuffling of facilities occurred on the city's eastern side at the same time, also due to construction of a new high school.