As seen in the photos below, some businesses and a church include "Cotaco" in their names. Off Alabama 36, down Cotaco School Road, is the Cotaco School; scroll down to the bottom of the website "About" page for the "Legend of Cotaco School." Also in the area is Cotaco-Florette Road and Cotaco Creek, which begins in Marshall County and flows into the Tennessee River. Way over in Decatur there is even the Cotaco Opera House, apparently the first opera house constructed in Alabama.
William A. Read's Indian Place Names in Alabama [1937] notes that a Cherokee village probably existed in the area and that "Cotaco" is perhaps a corruption of a Cherokee word for swamp or thicket. The Alabama Territorial legislature in 1818 named what is now Morgan County as Cotaco County; the name was changed in 1821.
I checked some Alabama highway maps from the 1920s until the present and none had Cotaco marked. Yet small places can have much larger resonances through Alabama history.
UPDATE 4 March 2023
I've recently come across Paul Huggins' article, "This old house--for sale. Man prepares to leave 1st courthouse" published in the Decatur Daily 1 November 2004. The article profiles Rick McLemore, who restored what is described as "the oldest structure in Morgan County", had lived in it for a number of years and plans to sell it. The building was originally a tavern and inn known as Vaughn's Store constructed between 1812 and 1816 when the county was known as Cotaco. Originally on the Cotaco-Florette Road, McLemore had it moved two miles to 72 Ryan Road in Cotaco. The building apparently served as the courthouse during Alabama's territorial and early statehood periods until that wooden courthouse was constructed in 1825. Huggins notes, "It's note only the oldest inhabitable structure in the county, it's the oldest standing courthouse in Alabama".
This business is no longer operating, but the church and grocery below definitely are.
One of the brews from Cross-Eyed Owl Brewing in Decatur
