Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Heavener, OK

Heavener is a city in Le Flore County in southeastern Oklahoma, about 12 miles south of the county seat, Poteau, within the former Choctaw Nation.

Heavener took its name by a popular vote of residents in 1895, honoring Joseph H. Heavener, one of the area's earliest white settlers, who had arrived in 1877 on land owned with his Choctaw wife's family.

Heavener incorporated in 1898 under the Curtis Act, and its first post office opened on May 12, 1896, operating out of a railroad boxcar.

Heavener is best known for the Heavener Runestone, a large sandstone slab in Heavener Runestone Park just outside the city limits, carved with letters of the runic alphabet that some speculate were etched by pre-Columbian Norsemen.

Heavener's Viking lore spilled over to nearby Poteau, where Carl Albert State College changed its mascot from the Trojans to the Vikings in the early 1990s because of the Runestone.

Heavener's population was 2,985 in the 2020 census, in about 1,048 households, and roughly 37% of residents are Hispanic or Latino.

Heavener grew into a railroad division point after the Kansas City Southern Railway built a roundhouse there in 1910, and the railroad — today CPKC — still operates a major yard, crew base and fueling facility that has been the town's largest employer for over 70 years.

Heavener's second-largest employer is OK Foods, which opened a poultry hatchery there in 1986, followed by a processing plant in 1992 and a feed mill in 1995.

Heavener, at the time of its founding, lay in Sugar Loaf County of the Moshulatubbee District of the Choctaw Nation, one of the tribal counties that existed before Oklahoma statehood.

Heavener High School's teams are the Wolves, wearing purple and gold.