Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Asher, OK

Asher is a town in southern Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, on U.S. Highway 177 about twenty-three miles south of Shawnee and just north of the South Canadian River.

Asher was named for George "Matt" Asher of Clay County, Kentucky, who supplied the land for the townsite on the condition the community carry his name — though he never lived in the county.

The Asher post office was established on November 26, 1901, when postmaster George A. McCurry moved his store and the Avoca post office two miles north to the new town without government permission; the town itself opened on October 30, 1901.

Asher's post office is the last remaining one in the original Avoca Township, which once also included Sacred Heart Mission, Avoca, Meanko and Violet.

In 1902 the Choctaw, Oklahoma and Gulf Railroad built a line between Tecumseh and Asher, and by statehood in 1907 Asher's population stood at 465.

A few miles from Asher, the Sacred Heart Mission was established in 1877 and is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places; Jesse Chisholm's trading post at Chisholm Spring stood about two miles west of town on the Chisholm Trail.

Oil was produced near Asher beginning in 1929, and the oil-boom era pushed the population to 653 by 1930.

In the early 1930s Asher was slated to become the seat of a proposed new "Petroleum County" carved from oil-producing land — a plan that would have moved much of Tecumseh south to Asher — but the county was never created.

The 2020 census counted 370 people in Asher, down from 393 in 2010, when the town had 161 households.

Asher celebrated its centennial in 2001 and was honored on a Pottawatomie County centennial monument dedicated September 21, 2007, for the Oklahoma state centennial.