 According to tradition, the community was named from an incident when an evangelist paid the new settlement a visit, imploring the first settlers to "reform".In May 1968, a mule train, part of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference sponsored Poor People's Campaign, stopped for two days in Reform before heading to Tuscaloosa, Alabama on its way to Washington, DC.On August 31, 2017, the area was hit by an EF2 tornado.