Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Hugo, OK

Hugo is the county seat of Choctaw County in southeastern Oklahoma, about nine miles north of the Texas line, at the junction of U.S. Highways 271 and 70 and the southern terminus of the Indian Nation Turnpike.

Hugo was founded in late 1901 and named for French novelist Victor Hugo, author of Les Misérables.

Hugo is nicknamed "Circus City, USA": drawn by the region's mild climate, fifteen different circuses have used Hugo as their winter headquarters since 1942, and the Carson & Barnes and Kelly Miller circuses are still based there.

Hugo's Mt. Olivet Cemetery has a special section, established in 1960 and often called Showmen's Rest, reserved for circus performers; circus founder D. R. Miller and champion bull riders Freckles Brown, Lane Frost and Todd Whatley are buried there.

The owners of the Carson & Barnes Circus also run Hugo's Endangered Ark Foundation, the second-largest Asian elephant sanctuary in the United States.

By 1910 Hugo had grown to 4,582 residents with two newspapers, four banks, hotels, electricity and water and sewer utilities; the 2020 census counted 5,166 people.

Near Hugo is Goodland Academy, begun in 1848 as a Presbyterian mission school and orphanage for Native American children and one of the oldest boarding schools west of the Mississippi River.

Hugo sits in Oklahoma's "Little Dixie" region and the state-designated Choctaw Country tourist region, and it hosts the annual Bill Grant Bluegrass Festival.

Hugo was the home of William Judson Holloway, who became governor of Oklahoma in 1929.

Hugo's restored Frisco Depot and Harvey House Restaurant preserve its railroad heritage, and its 1937 post office holds a New Deal mural by Joseph Fleck titled The Red Man of Oklahoma Sees the First Stage Coach.