Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Services in Toyah, TX

Toyah is a small incorporated town in central Reeves County and is the oldest townsite in the county.

The name Toyah comes from an Indigenous word meaning "flowing water," a reference to the artesian springs in the area.

Toyah began as a trading post for the large ranches of the region, after W. T. Youngblood and his family arrived by covered wagon with a stock of general merchandise around 1880.

The first train reached Toyah in 1881, a post office opened the same year, and by October 1881 the booming railroad camp was described as a town of tents, saloons, and restaurants.

Toyah became a major cattle-shipping point on the railroad, reporting 771 people in 1910 and more than 1,000 residents by 1914.

In 1885, Texas Ranger Captain James T. Gillespie established a camp for Company E of the Rangers at Toyah.

In September 1928, aviator Amelia Earhart made an unscheduled five-day stop at Toyah to adjust her carburetor, an episode locals later documented in the regional history The Toyah Taproots.

Toyah was incorporated in 1933, but the Great Depression had already cut its population from over 1,000 to 553 by 1931.

Severe flooding in 2004 breached Toyah's protective dike and damaged nearly every building in town, hastening its slide toward ghost-town status.

Toyah's population has fallen for a century, from 100 people in 2000 to 90 in 2010 and just 61 at the 2020 census, living in a town of about 1.6 square miles.