The Hartselle Downtown Commercial Historic District is a historic district in Hartselle, Alabama. The town was founded in 1870 when the Louisville and Nashville Railroad was extended south to Birmingham and Mobile. Hartselle quickly grew into a transportation hub for shipping timber and cotton. The town was devastated by two fires, in 1901 which destroyed all commercial buildings east of the railroad tracks, and in 1916 where twenty-one buildings including the passenger and freight depots were destroyed. Only nine buildings (all brick) survived the 1916 fire. After an initial building boom from 1916 through 1920, development slowed due to low farming prices after World War I and the Great Depression. Notable structures in the district are the hip roofed L&N passenger depot and two-story freight depot and the Colonial Revival post office (built 1939). Of the commercial buildings, 51 are one story, 14 are two stories, and 1 is three stories. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

A ranch (from Spanish: rancho/Mexican Spanish) is an area of land, including various structures, given primarily to ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle and sheep. It is a subtype of a farm. These terms are most often applied to livestock-raising operations in Mexico, the Western United States and Western Canada, though there are ranches in other areas. People who own or operate a ranch are called ranchers, cattlemen, or stockgrowers. Ranching is also a method used to raise less common livestock such as horses, elk, American bison, ostrich, emu, and alpaca.

Ranches generally consist of large areas, but may be of nearly any size. In the western United States, many ranches are a combination of privately owned land supplemented by grazing leases on land under the control of the federal Bureau of Land Management or the United States Forest Service. If the ranch includes arable or irrigated land, the ranch may also engage in a limited amount of farming, raising crops for feeding the animals, such as hay and feed grains.

Ranches that cater exclusively to tourists are called guest ranches or, colloquially, \"dude ranches\". Most working ranches do not cater to guests, though they may allow private hunters or outfitters onto their property to hunt native wildlife. However, in recent years, a few struggling smaller operations have added some dude ranch features such as horseback rides, cattle drives, and guided hunting to bring in additional income. Ranching is part of the iconography of the \"Wild West\" as seen in Western movies and rodeos.