Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Lexington, OK

Lexington is a city in southern Cleveland County, Oklahoma, lying across the Canadian River from Purcell on State Highway 39.

In 1835, Major Richard B. Mason established Camp Holmes just north of the present town, a site of early peace negotiations between the Plains tribes and the Five Civilized Tribes.

Lexington was planned before the Land Run of 1889 by entrepreneurs from Lexington, Kentucky, and the town took its name from that Kentucky city.

The Post Office Department designated a Lexington post office on February 21, 1890, and the town reincorporated in 1892 after an early compromise.

Before statehood Lexington was a notorious "whiskey town" on the border of dry Indian Territory: saloons dominated its business landscape, a bar settlement called Sandtown sprang up on the river floodplain, and the Weitzenhoffer and Turk Distillery, begun in 1900, was the largest in Oklahoma Territory.

Lexington's population stood at just 223 in 1890 but jumped to 861 by 1900.

The U.S. Highway 77 Bridge across the Canadian River connecting Lexington to Purcell is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

During World War II the U.S. Navy operated a gunnery school east of Lexington; after the war the property became an annex of Central State Mental Hospital.

Lexington is home to the Lexington Assessment and Reception Center, begun in 1976, which processes every new prisoner entering the Oklahoma state correctional system.

Also at Lexington is the Joseph Harp Correctional Center, a medium-security prison that opened in September 1978 and is named for Joseph Harp, the longtime warden of the Oklahoma State Reformatory.