Valley is a city in Chambers County, Alabama, occupying the western bank of the Chattahoochee River, which forms the Alabama–Georgia state line. It was incorporated in 1980 through the merger of four historic textile mill villages — Fairfax, Langdale, River View, and Shawmut — uniting communities that had grown up around the cotton mills of the Chattahoochee Valley. The 2020 census recorded a population of 10,529. The city's identity is inseparable from its textile heritage. Beginning in 1866, local planters and merchants whose fortunes had been disrupted by the Civil War pooled resources to build cotton mills along the river, and the valley soon became one of the South's industrial textile centers. The companies that emerged — ultimately West Point Manufacturing and later WestPoint Stevens — became a leading national producer of sheets and the second-largest producer of towels. The mill villages developed as close-knit, company-built communities, and many of their historic homes and structures remain woven into Valley's streets today. Valley sits on the Interstate 85 corridor, roughly 75 miles southwest of Atlanta and 85 miles northeast of Montgomery, giving it direct highway connections to both state capitals. West Point Lake, a 35-mile reservoir with some 525 miles of shoreline, lies immediately along the city's edge and anchors regional recreation. Local facilities, including a community sports complex with aquatics and a rails-to-trails path, extend the city's outdoor offerings. Today Valley balances a proud manufacturing legacy with a small-city, community-oriented character, preserving the historic structures of its mill-village past while serving as a regional center in eastern Alabama. The city's civic life reflects its merged origins, with community institutions spread across the former villages rather than concentrated in a single downtown, a multi-center layout that keeps each neighborhood connected to its own schools, churches, and gathering places.