Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Higgins, TX

Higgins is a small city in southeastern Lipscomb County on U.S. Highway 60, just two miles from the Oklahoma border in the northeastern Texas Panhandle.

Higgins was platted in 1887, the year its post office opened and the first train arrived, and it was named for G. H. Higgins, a wealthy stockholder in the Santa Fe Railroad.

Higgins began as an early cattle shipping point, and ranching, farming, and oil remain the chief industries around it, with oil drilling in the area starting in 1957.

Higgins was incorporated in 1908 and built a reputation as a progressive-minded community.

On April 9, 1947, a massive tornado destroyed Higgins's entire business district and half its homes and killed 45 people in town, part of the same storm system that went on to devastate Woodward, Oklahoma.

That 1947 Glazier-Higgins-Woodward tornado is ranked among the deadliest tornadoes in United States history.

Higgins reached its peak census population of 812 in 1930, and the 2020 census counted 356 residents.

In 2020 Higgins had 161 households and a median resident age of 47.5 years, with about a third of households made up of people living alone.

Since July 1, 2020, Higgins students have been served by the Canadian Independent School District, which absorbed the former Higgins school district.

Higgins has held an annual Will Rogers Day since 1962, honoring the cowboy humorist who once worked for a local ranch family and stayed a lifelong friend of Higgins rancher Frank Ewing.