In Alabama, Monroeville is the county seat of Monroe County, and has a population of about 6000.
Monroeville is known as the hometown of two prominent writers of the post-World War II period, Truman Capote and Harper Lee, who were childhood friends in the 1930s.
Lee’s 1960 novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, earned her the Pulitzer Prize.
The lasting fame of To Kill a Mockingbird became a tourist draw for the town. In 1997, the Alabama Legislature designated Monroeville and Monroe County as the “Literary Capital of Alabama”.
But that wasn’t enough to stem a decline of the downtown, which is now coming back to life in a major way, thanks largely to the regenerative investments of one local man.
2010 photo of pre-revitalization Monroeville is by Carol M. Highsmith, via Wikipedia.