Sylacauga, Alabama

Sylacauga is a city in Talladega County, Alabama, United States. At the 2010 census the population was 12,749.

Nicknames for Sylacauga include "The Marble City", "Buzzard's Roost", "Alabama’s Best-Kept Secret" and "Sly Town".

Sylacauga is known for its fine white marble bedrock. It was discovered shortly after settlers moved into the area and has been quarried ever since. The marble industry was the first recorded industry in the Sylacauga area.

Sylacauga is the site of the first documented case of an object from outer space hitting a person. On November 30, 1954, a 4 kg (9 lb) piece of what became known as the Hodges Meteorite crashed through the roof of an Oak Grove house, bounced off a radio, and badly bruised Mrs. Ann Hodges, who was taking an afternoon nap.

Sylacauga is on the 2010 list of "100 Best Communities for Young People" by America's Promise Alliance.

History

The first settlers in the Coosa River Valley were the Creek Indians whose later encounters with the Spanish and French had a significant influence on the history of Sylacauga. Events that occurred between these three groups were partly responsible for the settlement of the village of Chalakagay in 1748 by Shawnee Indians led by Peter Chartier.

Sylacauga (meteorite)

The Sylacauga meteorite fell on November 30, 1954, at 13:46 local time (18:46 UT) in Oak Grove, Alabama, near Sylacauga. It is commonly called the Hodges meteorite because a fragment of it struck Ann Elizabeth Fowler Hodges (1920–1972).

Importance

The Sylacauga meteorite is the first documented extraterrestrial object to have injured a human being in the USA. The grapefruit-sized fragment crashed through the roof of a frame house, bounced off a large wooden console radio, and hit Hodges while she napped on a couch. The 34-year-old woman was badly bruised on one side of her body but able to walk. The event received worldwide publicity.

The Sylacauga meteorite is not the only extraterrestrial object to have struck a human. A manuscript published at Tortona, Italy, in 1677 tells of a Milanese friar who was killed by a meteorite. In 1992 a small meteorite fragment (3 g) hit a young Ugandan boy in Mbale, but it had been slowed down by a tree and did not cause any injury. The 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor in Russia caused over a thousand injuries, but these were due to breaking glass and similar damage from the meteor's explosion in the air, rather than victims' actually being struck by the object.