Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Cushing, OK

Cushing is a city in Payne County known around the world by its nickname, the "Pipeline Crossroads of the World."

Cushing was established after the Land Run of September 22, 1891, into the Sac and Fox Reservation by William "Billy Rae" Little, and it was named for Marshall Cushing, private secretary to U.S. Postmaster General John Wanamaker.

Wildcatter Thomas B. Slick started Cushing's oil boom on March 17, 1912, when he brought in a gusher east of town, opening the Cushing-Drumright Oil Field, whose production peaked in 1915 at 8.3 million barrels.

Cushing became a refining center after the Consumers Oil Company opened its first refinery in 1913; more than 50 refineries operated in the Cushing area over its history, along with 23 oil companies and five oil-field supply houses.

In 1983 the New York Mercantile Exchange chose Cushing as the official delivery and price settlement point for West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures, making this town of about 8,000 the place where the benchmark price of American oil is set.

Cushing's tank farms hold roughly 90 million barrels of crude oil storage capacity, and its pipeline terminal alone can move as much as 1.5 million barrels a day.

In April 2020, when Cushing's storage filled up during the pandemic demand collapse, the glut there helped send U.S. oil futures prices below zero for the first time in history.

The 2020 census counted 8,327 people in Cushing; the city's population peaked at 9,301 in 1930 during its oil heyday.

In May 2023 Cushing was selected as the site for a planned $5.56 billion crude oil refinery designed to process 250,000 barrels per day of light sweet crude into low-carbon transportation fuels.