Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Chickasha, OK

Chickasha is the county seat and largest city of Grady County, Oklahoma, and sits about 42 miles southwest of Oklahoma City on Interstate 44.

Chickasha was founded in 1892 by Hobart Johnstone Whitley, a land developer and Rock Island Railroad executive, when the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway built its track through Indian Territory.

At its founding Chickasha lay in Pontotoc County of the Chickasaw Nation, and it became the seat of the newly organized Grady County when Oklahoma statehood came in 1907.

A post office opened in Chickasha in June 1892, and the town incorporated ten years later, in 1902.

Chickasha grew into Grady County's largest shipping point for cattle and farm goods, and one of its earliest industries was the Chickasha Cotton Oil Company, established in 1899.

From 1910 to 1927 Chickasha ran its own electric trolley system, the Chickasha Street Railway.

The 2020 census counted 16,051 people in Chickasha living in 6,035 households, and about 55 percent of its occupied homes were owner-occupied.

Chickasha is home to the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma, which began in 1908 as the Oklahoma Industrial Institute and College for Girls, became the Oklahoma College for Women in 1916, went coeducational in 1965, and took its current name in 1975.

During World War II, more than 8,000 U.S. Army Air Force cadets trained at the Wilson and Bonfis Flying School in Chickasha, a site that later became the Chickasha Municipal Airport.

Every year from around Thanksgiving through the end of December, Chickasha's Festival of Light fills the 43-acre Shannon Springs Park with more than 3.5 million lights and draws over 250,000 visitors.