[5] Trussville remained an agricultural community until after the Civil War, when the Alabama-Chattanooga Railway was built through the city.

The Cahaba Project was originally planned by staff at the Alabama Polytechnic Institute to be a rural community of small farmsteads raising potatoes and vegetables.

By the middle of the decade it was decided to locate the community close enough to Birmingham to commute by public transit, so the site in Trussville was chosen.

About 60 existing houses were demolished, with white residents moved to the Roper Hill community and cottages for African-Americans built on a 40-acre tract northwest of the Cahaba Project called "Washington Heights" or, more commonly, "The Forties".

[citation needed] Local landscape architect W. H. Kestler designed a relatively dense suburban layout with 400 houses on 1/2 to 3/4 acre lots encircling a central green space called "The Mall".

An entrance gateway with a covered gazebo was built at the corner of Main Street and Parkway Drive to serve as the community's "front door".

[citation needed] Most of the one- and two-level homes were constructed in the American four-square style with brick and wood siding, pine floors and metal roofs.

During World War II many families planted Victory Gardens to supplement their grocery rations.

[citation needed] Oak furnishings and appliances were also available to renters at a nominal cost from the government.

Resentment over the privileges given to residents of the government-funded Cahaba Project resulted in tensions between them and the "Old Trussville" families, many of whom lacked electricity and indoor plumbing.

It has seen much residential and retail construction, with two major shopping centers built during the early 2000s: the Colonial Promenade at Trussville on its western side and both the Colonial Promenade Tutwiler Farm and Pinnacle at Tutwiler Farm along Highway 11 at the I-59/I-459 interchange.

[citation needed] As of the 2020 United States census, there were 26,123 people, 7,562 households, and 6,094 families residing in the city.

In 2010 the United States Census Bureau listed the Trussville population as 19,993, making it one of the fastest-growing cities in Jefferson County and Alabama.

[17] Trussville's city council members were Perry Cook, Jaime Anderson, Lisa Bright, Ben Short, and Alan Taylor.

The Tribune, which covers crime, government, sports and community events in Trussville, Clay and Pinson, is published each Wednesday and provides news online.