Anniston, Alabama is located at the southernmost point of the Blue Ridge Mountains, a section of the world-renowned Appalachian Mountains. Traversing the city via Veterans Parkway, the city's new bypass, or Quintard Avenue, the city's most popular thoroughfare, citizens and visitors cannot help but marvel at the majestic views that surround them. Anniston has a rich cultural and civil rights history and is known mostly as the home of Fort McClellan, a military base that was closed in the early nineties. The city's civil rights history became even more prominent recently when the city received the designation for the Freedom Riders National Monument. The monument will include the bus station and the bus burning site, areas made famous by the Freedom Rider bus attack of 1961. According to a 2015 estimate, more than 22,000 people reside in Anniston. The Anniston City School System consists of six schools and serves approximately 2000 students in grades pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade.