In-Home Drug Testing Oakdale, TN

Local Area Info: Oakdale, Tennessee

Oakdale was originally known as "Honeycutt" after an early settler, Allen Honeycutt. In the 1880s, the Cincinnati Southern Railway, which connected Chattanooga and Cincinnati, was built through the area, intersecting the vast system of the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railroad (later the Southern Railway) at Emory Gap near Harriman. Allen Honeycutt donated land to the railroad for construction of a switching point. In 1892, the name of the town was changed to "Oakdale" after a nearby mining operation.

The stretch of the Cincinnati Southern from Oakdale to Somerset, Kentucky, involves steep grades that were too difficult for normal late-19th and early-20th century steam-powered locomotives, so a railyard was set up at Oakdale where trains were modified to allow them to make the trek north. 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. The railroad also 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, this hotel was converted into one of the nation's largest YMCA facilities, with 1,500 beds and its own library and clinic. Oakdale initially incorporated in 1887, though the state repealed its charter in 1895. 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. A park and tennis courts were built in the 1970s, and a new SR 299 bridge over the Emory was completed in 1999.