Grove Oak is a small town in the northeast part of the U.S. state

U.S. state

A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...

 of Alabama

Alabama

Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...

, in DeKalb County

DeKalb County, Alabama

As of the 2010 Census DeKalb County had a population of 71,109. The median age was 37.5. The racial and ethnic makeup of the population was 81.6% non-Hispanic white, 1.5% African American, 1.4% Native American, 0.3% Asian, 0.2% Pacific Islander , 9.9% from some other race, 2.2% reporting two or...

. Grove Oak is located on top of Sand Mountain

Sand Mountain (Alabama)

Sand Mountain is a sandstone plateau in northeastern Alabama and northwestern Georgia. It is part of the southern tip of the Appalachian mountain chain. Geologically a continuation of Walden Ridge, Sand Mountain is part of the Cumberland Plateau, separated from the main portion of the plateau by...

. It has four or five small stores and a gas station, and is surrounded by forests and farmland. There are two Baptist

Baptist

Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...

 churches. There is a small Masonic lodge and a now-closed junior high school. It also has a restaurant that has been in and out of business several times.

Until about the mid-1970s, it was the center of a farming

Agriculture

Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

 community and had its own cotton gin

Cotton gin

A cotton gin is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, a job formerly performed painstakingly by hand...

. Today, farming is not so much the focus, and most working members of the Grove Oak community drive to factories or other jobs in the larger towns nearby. Limited farming, cattle

Cattle

Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...

, and poultry

Poultry

Poultry are domesticated birds kept by humans for the purpose of producing eggs, meat, and/or feathers. These most typically are members of the superorder Galloanserae , especially the order Galliformes and the family Anatidae , commonly known as "waterfowl"...

raising takes place in and around the town.