Originally known as Deer Stand Hill (an Indian hunting ground), which was first settled about 1824, it was later known as Zebulon and then Centreville before being renamed Troy in 1838.

[9] A hotel and taverns along with small mercantile stores were soon created, quickly making the new town the social center of the county.

Captain Daniel E. Burch of the U.S. Army marked the route using three notches on trees for a crew under Lt. Elias Phillips to follow.

While never being highly needed as a military supply road, it became a boon to the settlers who used it to move into south-central and southeast Alabama and into northwest Florida.

The militiamen eventually overran their position and captured the camp, wherein they found items recently plundered from area plantations.

A force of over 250 combined Alabama and Georgia militiamen led under General William Wellborn tracked a party of about 400 Creek fugitives that included men, women, and children.

The Three Notch Trail that traversed through Troy was also considered dangerous at this point, as local Creek Indians around the area were turning violent and burning and looting houses along the stretch.

The path of the Creeks had become easy to find due to the several looted and burned plantations they had left behind them as they moved south.

After finding their temporary camp in a nearby swamp, General Wellborn divided his command into two wings to encircle the Creeks.

Records from some of the participants in the battle reported that some of the Creek women and children also took up arms to fight, raining showers of rifle balls and arrows on the militiamen.

However, roughly 20 miles east of Troy at the Pike County border, the Skirmish at Hobdy's Bridge, what some consider the last battle of the Civil War, took place on May 19, 1865.

Skirmish at Hobdy's Bridge A detachment of Union soldiers from the 1st Florida U.S. Cavalry had been sent from Montgomery to Eufaula to escort a mail shipment through the unsettled regions of eastern Alabama.

A mail escort, commanded by Lt. Joseph Carroll of the Union Army, left Montgomery on May 11, 1865, and reached Eufaula without difficulty.

The total strength of the detachment was only 25 men, but because all seemed quiet, Carroll decided to spend a few days in Eufaula to rest his horses.

Upon receiving this intelligence, Carroll decided to return to Montgomery as quickly as possible and crossed Hobdy's Bridge with the main body of his detachment two days before the appointed rendezvous.

According to military records, the remaining Union soldiers gathered at Hobdy's Bridge as ordered on the morning of May 19, 1865, only to learn that Carroll and the main body were already gone.

Turning their horses onto the long wooden bridge over Pea River, the cavalrymen started off to follow their commander's route.

After the completion of the Mobile & Girard Railroad (later part of the Central of Georgia Railway) in 1870, Troy had a quick spike in population.

By 1890, the Alabama Midland Railway (later part of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad) was completed from Montgomery to Bainbridge, Georgia, via Troy.

Thanks mostly to the efforts of Ariosto A. Wiley, a powerful state senator who was born in Troy, the city won the education prize over Lowndesboro, Alabama, which had also wanted a normal school.

Its survival was assured when the third president of the college, Edward Madison Shackelford, led the movement from downtown to its present site starting in 1924.

She continues to be recognized as the namesake of the festival and the exclusive scholarship that is awarded each year to a high-school senior pursuing the arts.

This event features horse and wagon rides, trips on the Pioneer Express, and Native American camps with demonstrations of candlemaking, spinning, weaving, quiltmaking, blacksmithing, drum, and dance.

Performers who have routinely taken part in the annual festival include nationally known Donald Davis, Kevin Kling, Carmen Agra Deedy, Elizabeth Ellis, Andy Offutt Irwin, Bil Lepp, and Kathryn Tucker Windham.

The run starts out in north Alabama on Thursday and then makes its way south, stopping in the Birmingham area overnight and then on to Montgomery and Troy.

The State Games Opening Ceremony convenes on Friday evening in Troy University's Veterans Memorial Stadium.

The event features the Flame of Hope being carried into the stadium by members of the agencies that participate in the Cops on Top fund-raising campaign.

The largest employers in the Troy micropolitan area are Troy University, Lockheed Martin, Sikorsky Aircraft, CGI Group, the Wal-Mart distribution center in nearby Brundidge, Alabama, and the various branches of Sanders Lead, Wiley Sanders Truck Lines, and KW Plastics operations.

Troy was the filming location of the Kid Rock song "Redneck Paradise", featuring Hank Williams Jr.

Dean Daughtry from Classics IV and the Atlanta Rhythm Section was seen playing the bar in the 1970s, among other well-known artists.