Most of the highway 22, County Road 81 area of Valley Grande was land originally granted Dr. George Phillips in 1821 from the federal government. For many years Dr. George Phillips maintained a plantation in the area he named “Grand View”. In later years, as more people moved into the area, Grande View came to be known as Valley Grande.
Modern day Valley Grande encompasses the historic community of Summerfield. Established in 1819 as Valley Creek, the town was renamed Summerfield in 1845 to honor the famous Methodist preacher John Summerfield. In 1829, the first academy in Dallas County was chartered in Valley Creek. In 1842, the Alabama Conference of the Methodist Church opened the Methodist Centenary Institute, a coeducational institution chartered by the Alabama Legislature on January 2, 1841. At its peak, Summerfield was a very prosperous community of planters, doctors, merchants, ministers, and educators. The historical core of Summerfield has survived intact and has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places with a historic district encompassing 56.12 acres.
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