Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Lefors, TX

Lefors is a town in central Gray County, Texas, on the North Fork of the Red River and State Highway 273, twelve miles southeast of Pampa, in the Pampa micropolitan area.

Lefors was founded in 1888 by Travis Leach, Perry LeFors, Henry Thut, and Henry B. Lovett, and was named for Perry LeFors, a foreman of the Diamond F Ranch who had come to the Panhandle in 1878.

Lefors owes its unusual spelling to the U.S. Post Office — when a post office opened in 1892, postal officials required that the capital F in LeFors be lower-cased.

When Gray County was organized on May 27, 1902, Lefors became the first county seat, and its two-story frame courthouse was built for less than $2,500.

Lefors held on to the county seat despite having no railroad, but lost it to Pampa in a special election in 1928.

The 1920s oil boom transformed Lefors — three oil pools were discovered nearby, and the boom brought the town electricity, modern utilities, real-estate speculation, and an independent school district.

Lefors incorporated by 1931, and in 1932 it finally got a railroad when the Fort Worth and Denver Railway extended its line from Pampa.

Eight people died on April 7–8, 1938, when an early spring blizzard stranded about 100 travelers in some 55 automobiles on the road between Pampa and Lefors.

After a 1961 flood, the 1964 closure of area carbon black plants, and a 1975 tornado, Lefors shrank so much that its own residents nicknamed it 'Ghost Town.'

The 2020 census counted 420 residents in Lefors, down from 952 in 1930 and 809 in 1940.