Emergency Crime Scene and Biohazard Cleanup in Oak Grove, AL

Oak Grove is a small town in Talladega County, Alabama, incorporated in 1966.

Oak Grove is a suburb of Sylacauga; the two municipalities are contiguous, and both stretch along U.S. Highway 280 southeast of Birmingham.

The 2020 census counted 564 residents in Oak Grove, up from 528 in 2010 but still below the town's peak of 638 in 1980.

Oak Grove is a hilly town draped across both sides of Landers Hill and Merkle Mountain, and it has no town square or downtown — its businesses line U.S. Highway 280, which locals call "the four-lane."

Oak Grove gained worldwide fame in 1954 when Ann E. Hodges, resting on her sofa at home in Oak Grove, was struck on the hip by a meteorite that crashed through her roof — the first documented case in history of a meteorite injuring a human being.

The Hodges meteorite incident drew national television coverage, and Mrs. Hodges appeared on Garry Moore's show "I've Got a Secret" to tell her story.

Oak Grove has its own "Gravity Hill" on Gravity Hill Road, the old Highway 280, where cars appear to coast uphill — an optical illusion that still draws curious visitors.

A cut-your-own Christmas tree farm started in 1978 by later mayor Bloise Zeigler drew hundreds of families to Oak Grove each season and grew the official Alabama state Christmas tree displayed at the Governor's Mansion in 2004.

When the tree farm closed in 2010, Zeigler donated the land to the town, which turned it into Comet Grove, a community garden that gives free produce to low-income residents.

Jim Zeigler, who was raised in Oak Grove, was elected to the Alabama Public Service Commission in 1974 at age 26, becoming the youngest person ever to hold a state office in Alabama at the time.