Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Oakdale, TN

Oakdale is an incorporated town located along the Emory River in Morgan County, Tennessee, in a hilly area atop the Cumberland Plateau.

Oakdale was originally known as Honeycutt, after early settler Allen Honeycutt, who donated land to the railroad for a switching point when the Cincinnati Southern Railway was built through the area in the 1880s, intersecting the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railroad system at nearby Emory Gap.

In 1892 the town's name was changed to Oakdale, after a nearby mining operation.

A railyard was set up at Oakdale because the stretch of the Cincinnati Southern line running north to Somerset, Kentucky, involved steep grades too difficult for normal steam locomotives, so trains were modified at Oakdale to make the trek north.

The railroad erected a large hotel, the Babahatchie Inn - "Babahatchie" was the original name of the Emory River - in 1880 and rebuilt it after it burned in 1892; in 1905 the hotel was converted into one of the nation's largest YMCA facilities, with 1,500 beds and its own library and clinic.

By the early 1900s Oakdale had developed into an important railroad town with a bank, five general stores, a drugstore, a hardware store, three schools, two churches, six secret societies, and a newspaper, and its population peaked at 1,552 in the 1920 census.

Oakdale initially incorporated in 1887, though the state repealed its charter in 1895, and it incorporated again in 1911.

The advent of diesel locomotives, which could handle the steep grades without modifications, eliminated the need for the Oakdale railyard, and the town declined in the mid-20th century.

The 2020 census counted 191 residents in Oakdale, down from 212 in 2010.

The 2020 census counted 71 households and 87 housing units in Oakdale, and the median age of its residents was 40.5 years.