Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Atco, NJ

Atco is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Waterford Township in Camden County, New Jersey, located about 16 miles southeast of Camden in the Philadelphia-Camden metropolitan area, with a small section of its southern edge extending into Winslow Township.

Atco was first listed as a census-designated place prior to the 2020 census, which counted a population of 9,058 residents.

The 2020 census counted 3,270 households in Atco, which covers 9.78 square miles at the western edge of Wharton State Forest and the Pine Barrens.

Atco's name originates from the Atlantic Transport Company, whose large ship orders placed with the New York Shipbuilding Corporation in Camden in 1902 and 1903 may have led to the name's adoption around that time, although an alternative proposed origin is an indigenous term meaning "land of many deer."

The Camden and Atlantic Railroad, founded in 1854, crossed the Pinelands through Atco on its route from Camden to Atlantic City, and the Raritan and Delaware Bay Railroad soon linked Atco to communities such as Toms River, Waretown, Atsion and Vineland.

Atco was the home of Atco Dragway, a quarter-mile NHRA-sanctioned drag strip that opened in 1960 and was New Jersey's oldest drag strip.

Atco Dragway closed abruptly and permanently on July 18, 2023, after 63 years of operation.

Atco served as a filming location for the movie Eddie and the Cruisers, and in 2005 an episode of Viva La Bam was shot at the dragway.

Atco Lake, a 30-acre lake, lies within the community, which has a humid subtropical climate typical of the western Pine Barrens edge.

Atco is known for the legend of the Atco Ghost: a young boy killed by a drunk driver while chasing a ball on Burnt Mill Road is said to appear there when a motorist honks the horn, a tale the Star-Ledger called "Jersey's most dutiful apparition."