Biohazard Cleanup Near Settles Heights Big Spring, TX

Big Spring is a city in West Texas and the county seat of Howard County, sitting in a rocky gorge between two foothills of the Caprock escarpment at the crossroads of Interstate 20 and U.S. Highway 87.

Big Spring takes its name from a single large spring in Sulphur Draw — despite the plural-sounding name, it is officially singular, and the final 's' was dropped around 1916; the spring was a prized watering place where Comanche and Shawnee fought over hunting and water rights and where Captain Randolph B. Marcy camped in 1849 on the Overland Trail to California.

Big Spring began in the late 1870s as a rough settlement of hide huts and saloons for buffalo hunters, grew when the Texas and Pacific Railway built through in 1880, became county seat when Howard County was organized in 1882, and incorporated in 1907.

Big Spring is known as the Crossroads of West Texas, and Signal Mountain, ten miles southeast of town, was a landmark for early cattlemen and travelers crossing the plains.

Big Spring's landmark Hotel Settles, a 15-story hotel opened on October 1, 1930, by rancher and oilman W. R. Settles for about $500,000, was for years the tallest building between Fort Worth and El Paso; abandoned for roughly 30 years, it reopened in 2012 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Big Spring trained more than 5,000 bombardiers at its World War II Army Airfield bombardier school, and the airfield was reactivated in 1951 as Webb Air Force Base before closing after the Vietnam War; the Hangar 25 Air Museum now preserves that aviation history.

Big Spring had 26,144 residents in the 2020 census, and its population once peaked near 35,000 during its oil and air base boom years.

Big Spring has about 9,061 households according to Census Bureau figures for 2020-2024, averaging about 2.29 persons per household.

Big Spring's namesake spring still flows in Comanche Trail Park, and the city is also home to Big Spring State Park atop Scenic Mountain and to Howard College, whose Dorothy Garrett Coliseum hosts concerts and events.