Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Calera, AL

Calera is a city in southern Shelby County, Alabama, that also extends south into Chilton County, with 16,494 residents at the 2020 census.

The community was initially known as Buxahatchie, then became a center of lime production during the Civil War and was known variously as Limeville, Lime Kilns, Lime City, and Lime Station.

In 1869 the community was renamed Calera, from the Spanish word for a lime quarry or lime kiln, reflecting the industry that built the town.

The railroad reached Calera in the mid-1850s, and the first through trains between Louisville, Kentucky, and Montgomery ran through the town in 1872.

Calera incorporated in 1887 and grew up as a center for lime manufacture, shipping burned lime from what was in 1865 the only site in Shelby County burning and shipping lime.

Calera's population has grown more than fivefold in two decades, from 3,158 residents in 2000 to 16,494 in 2020, driven by dozens of new residential subdivisions along the Interstate 65 corridor.

Calera is home to the Heart of Dixie Railroad Museum, the official railroad museum of the state of Alabama, which preserves and operates historic locomotives and railcars dating from the 19th century to the 1950s.

The museum's Calera & Shelby Railroad runs excursion trains over a five-and-a-half-mile section of the former Louisville & Nashville Mineral Loop, built in 1891, and its grounds hold two restored century-old depots, including the Wilton Depot moved to Calera in 1984.

The Calera Downtown Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The city maintains two major parks, Oliver Park and George W. Roy Recreational Park, and is home to the Timberline Golf Club and the Akridge Arboretum.