Hank Williams Sr. Death — Oak Hill, West Virginia

Hank Williams died in the back seat of his powder-blue Cadillac convertible on the road between Knoxville, Tennessee, and Canton, Ohio, in the early hours of January 1, 1953. His body was discovered by his driver Charles Carr when they stopped at a Pure Oil service station in Oak Hill, West Virginia. Williams was 29 years old. The official cause of death was heart failure, attributed to a combination of alcohol, chloral hydrate, and morphine. He had been in poor health for months — his back pain, his drinking, and the pressures of his failed marriage to Audrey had been mounting — but the speed of his end, on New Year's Day, at the very beginning of what should have been a new chapter, gave his death a particular weight.

Williams had been fired from the Grand Ole Opry in August 1952 for persistent unreliability caused by his drinking. His last recording session had taken place in September 1952. In the months between his dismissal and his death, he had recorded songs including "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive" and "Your Cheatin' Heart" — released posthumously, they became his biggest hits. The poetry of his final recordings — their subject matter, their fatalism — made them sound like foreknowledge.

A historical marker in Oak Hill, West Virginia, notes the location where Williams's body was discovered. The Pure Oil station no longer stands. His funeral in Montgomery, Alabama, drew an estimated 20,000 people. He is buried at Oakwood Cemetery Annex in Montgomery, where his grave remains one of the most visited in the American South. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame as a charter member in 1961.