Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Ransom Canyon, TX

Ransom Canyon is a small lakeside town tucked inside Yellow House Canyon in southeast Lubbock County, at the eastern edge of the Llano Estacado about twelve miles east of Lubbock.

Its name descends from the Spanish "canon de Rescate" — Canyon of Ransom — because Comancheros once negotiated here with the Comanches for the return of captives.

Spanish explorers may have crossed the canyon as early as the 1540s, and Jumano, Apache, and Comanche peoples camped at its fresh-water springs long before ranchers arrived.

The modern community was platted on September 20, 1965, as Lake Ransom Canyon, on 576 acres of the old Johnston Ranch, whose headquarters once controlled about 165 sections of the surrounding region.

Residents voted to incorporate in December 1977 as the Village of Lake Ransom Canyon, then voted in April 1984 to shorten the name to Ransom Canyon.

The 2020 census counted 1,189 residents and 400 households in Ransom Canyon, up from 561 people in 1980.

Water covers about 16% of Ransom Canyon's 0.93 square miles, as the town wraps around Lake Ransom Canyon, formed by damming the North Fork of the Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos River.

Sculptor Robert Bruno spent decades building his famous Steel House overlooking the lake in Ransom Canyon — a 110-ton weathering-steel house raised on four hollow legs that remained unfinished at his death in 2008.

Ransom Canyon is served by the Roosevelt and Slaton independent school districts.