Anniston

City and administrative headquarters of Calhoun County, northeast Alabama, USA; population (2000) 24,300. It is located 85 km/53 mi northeast of Birmingham, in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Anniston is in an iron mining and cotton growing area, and produces appliances, pipe, chemicals, machine parts, industrial castings, yarn, and clothing. Anniston is also a military service centre; the Anniston Army Depot, 16 km/10 mi to the west, is a major ordnance facility, and Fort McClellan (1917), with units to the northeast and northwest, is the headquarters of the Army's military police and its Chemical Corps.

Ironworks built on the city's site in 1863 to supply the Confederate army were destroyed by Union forces in 1865. A private industrial village was created in 1872; it was incorporated as a town in 1883.