Discreet Biohazard Cleanup Near North Chico Chico, TX

Chico is a small town in Wise County, North Texas, and it is one of the few Texas towns named after a Western town - it takes its name from Chico, California.

Colonel J. T. Brown founded Chico in 1876 and opened a store in the area; a church and school followed, and a post office was granted in 1882.

When the Rock Island railroad reached Chico, the town became an important cotton shipping point for Wise County farmers.

Chico's economy diversified beyond farming when oil was discovered nearby in the early 1940s, and the town also became a crushed-stone center, at one time operating four large gravel plants.

The 2020 census counted 946 people and 342 households in Chico, with a median age of 36.1 years and about 64.3% of occupied homes owner-occupied - little changed from the town's 947 residents back in 2000.

Chico covers about 1.5 square miles at an elevation of about 922 feet, northwest of Decatur, the Wise County seat.

Chico's 1893 Hanna-Robinson-Richey Drugstore, built of native sandstone by Alexander Virgil Hanna and now a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, housed the first telephone switchboard in Chico along with offices for a doctor, lawyer, and jeweler.

A tiny 256-square-foot log cabin in Chico, believed built in the 1870s, served the pioneers as both a schoolhouse and a church before becoming the Siddons-Barnes Log Cabin landmark.

In 1888 town founder J. T. Brown built the Brown Hotel, on whose porch Governor Charles A. Culberson later pardoned Brown for his part in an 1895 fatal fight.

Chico students are served by the Chico Independent School District.