Emergency Crime Scene and Biohazard Cleanup in Athens, AL

Athens is a city in and the county seat of Limestone County in north-central Alabama, about 15 miles south of the Tennessee line, and it is part of the Huntsville metropolitan orbit.

Athens is one of the oldest incorporated cities in Alabama, having been incorporated on November 19, 1818, a full year before Alabama became a state on December 14, 1819.

The town was founded by John Coffee, Robert Beaty, John D. Carroll and John Read, was first called Athenson, and was renamed Athens after the ancient Greek city when it was incorporated.

Athens was chosen as the seat of the newly created Limestone County on March 22, 1819, and its first newspaper, The Athenian, was established that same year.

The Athens area was home to Alabama's first two governors, brothers William Wyatt Bibb and Thomas Bibb, and later to Governor George S. Houston, who served from 1874 to 1878.

Athens is home to Athens State University, which began in 1822 as the Athens Female Academy and is Alabama's oldest institution of higher education; its landmark Founders Hall anchors the historic campus.

During the Civil War, Athens was seized on May 2, 1862 by Union troops under Colonel John Basil Turchin, whose men ransacked the town in the notorious 'Sack of Athens'; Turchin was later court-martialed over the incident.

During Reconstruction, Athens was home to the Trinity School, founded by Mary Fletcher Wells and funded by the American Missionary Association to educate the children of formerly enslaved people, and many homes in central Athens from the antebellum period survive today within the city's historic districts.

Every October, Athens State University hosts the Tennessee Valley Old Time Fiddlers Convention, known as the 'Granddaddy of Midsouth Fiddlers Conventions,' which has been held since 1967, draws an estimated 15,000 people, and was designated by state law in 2013 as the official home of Alabama's state music champions in 14 categories.

Athens is the home of the Tennessee Valley Authority's Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Limestone County, which began operating in 1974, was once the world's largest nuclear power plant, and was the site of a serious cable fire on March 22, 1975.