Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Crescent, OK

Crescent is a city in Logan County, about 14 miles northwest of Guthrie, the county seat, and part of the Oklahoma City metropolitan statistical area.

Crescent began in the fall of 1889 after the Land Run of 1889, when William Brown started selling general merchandise out of a wagon before moving into a log cabin with partner Benjamin Ryland.

Crescent took its name from a moon-shaped glade where the town began, and a post office christened Crescent City was established on February 21, 1890.

The Crescent townsite was platted in November 1891, and the town incorporated in 1893.

When the Denver, Enid and Gulf Railroad laid track a mile west of town in 1902, Crescent essentially moved: the town acquired 160 acres by the tracks, creating 'West Crescent,' and the community relocated to the railroad.

Oil was discovered north of Crescent in 1926 and south of town in 1930, creating the Crescent Oil Field.

In a notorious robbery on June 20, 1934, gunmen forced 13 hostages to load the Farmers and Merchants Bank's safe onto a truck, then abandoned both the hostages and the unopened safe outside town.

The Kerr-McGee Cimarron nuclear fuel processing plant near Crescent operated from 1965 to 1976 and became nationally known through the case of worker and whistleblower Karen Silkwood, whose 1974 death was dramatized in the 1983 film Silkwood.

Crescent has used a city manager-city council form of government since October 1951, with the council members choosing the mayor from among themselves.

Crescent's population peaked at 1,651 in 1980, and the 2020 census counted 1,299 residents.