Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Burbank, OK

Burbank is an incorporated town in western Osage County, Oklahoma, just north of U.S. Highway 60, about 22 miles west of Pawhuska and 122 miles northeast of Oklahoma City.

Burbank was founded in 1903 on the Osage Reservation along the Eastern Oklahoma Railway by Anthony 'Gabe' Carlton, a mixed-blood Osage and descendant of the Chouteau family who owned the townsite land.

Accounts differ on Burbank's name: the Oklahoma Historical Society says it reportedly came from an area covered in cockleburs along Salt Creek, while other accounts say it honored Elbridge Ayer Burbank, the artist famous for painting more than 125 Native American tribes.

Burbank's post office opened in 1907, and for its first two decades it was a quiet farming and ranching town of about 200 people.

Everything changed on May 8, 1920, when E. W. Marland's discovery well on the Bertha Hickman farm northeast of town came in at 150 barrels a day, opening the Burbank Field.

The Burbank Field sprawled over about 33 square miles of Osage and Kay counties, and on its peak day, July 21, 1923, it produced 121,700 barrels of oil.

Burbank boomed to roughly 3,000 people, Phillips and Sinclair built large refineries nearby, and the rough-and-tumble oil camp of Whizbang sprang up close to town.

Oil royalties made the Osage the 'richest people in the world' in the 1920s - the tribe received some $45 million in royalties, and leases were auctioned under Pawhuska's famous 'Million Dollar Elm.'

The boom faded fast: Burbank's population fell to 372 by 1930 and stood at 141 at the 2010 census and 123 at the 2020 census.

The Bank of Burbank building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.