Present-day Woodlawn was settled by a group of farming families who entered the area in 1815, just as it was opened to settlement by the Treaty of Fort Jackson.

The site they chose was a well-watered section of Jones Valley along the Georgia Road which extended deep into what was then still part of the Mississippi Territory.

In 1884 the Georgia Pacific Railway began offering service into the rapidly growing city of Birmingham, about 4 miles to the west.

In 1891 the State of Alabama granted a municipal corporation to the "City of Woodlawn," the name chosen by its first citizens to honor the Wood family, who remained active in civic affairs.

Compounding the growing problems of aging housing stock and "white flight" was a crisis of joblessness and poverty that took hold in the community.

An initial project to implement master plan goals in the central residential section of Woodlawn, north of 1st Avenue, has met with limited success.