Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Shepherd, TX

Shepherd, in San Jacinto County, was named for Houston banker and landowner Benjamin A. Shepherd, who platted the townsite in 1875 on the proposed route of the Houston, East and West Texas Railway.

Shepherd grew up beside Drew's Landing, an early Trinity River port where settlers brought in goods and shipped cotton and tobacco downriver to market.

The Shepherd post office opened on December 22, 1879, with Jack B. Noble as the first postmaster, the same year the railroad was completed past the townsite.

A Shepherd native, Robert Scott Lovett (born 1860), rose to become president of both the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific railroads and served the nation in a distinguished civilian role during World War I.

Shepherd was a center of the East Texas lumber industry before it settled into its lasting role as a market town for southeast Texas.

The city was not incorporated until April 1967, nearly ninety years after its founding.

Completion of nearby Lake Livingston in 1968 spurred rapid growth, pushing Shepherd past 1,600 residents by the mid-1980s and making it the largest town in San Jacinto County.

Shepherd had 2,105 residents at the 2020 Census, down from 2,319 in 2010, spread across about 6.1 square miles along U.S. Highway 59.

The 2020 Census counted 741 households and 836 housing units in Shepherd, and more than a quarter of its residents were under the age of 18.

On November 8, 2023, a petroleum processing plant exploded in Shepherd, prompting shelter-in-place orders within a five-mile radius and the closure of U.S. 59, the highway corridor planned for upgrade to Interstate 69.