Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Tulia, TX

Tulia is the county seat of Swisher County in the Texas Panhandle, south of Amarillo, and remains a center for farming and agribusiness at the junction of U.S. Route 87 and Texas State Highway 86.

Tulia's name was a clerical error: a post office established in 1887 in James A. Parrish's dugout on Middle Tule Draw was meant to be called Tule, after the nearby creek, but a clerk's mistake changed it to Tulia.

Tulia's townsite was chosen as the county seat when Swisher County was organized in 1890, and settler W. G. Conner donated land for the courthouse, the school, and the city park that still bears his name, Conner Park.

The Santa Fe railroad reached Tulia in December 1906, and the city incorporated in 1909 with W. G. Conner as its first mayor.

Tulia holds the record for the lowest temperature ever recorded in Texas, minus 23 degrees Fahrenheit, set during the Great Blizzard of 1899.

The population of Tulia was 4,473 at the 2020 census, down from 4,967 at the 2010 census.

On July 23, 1999, a regional drug task force arrested 47 people in Tulia - more than 10 percent of the town's Black population - based solely on the uncorroborated word of undercover officer Tom Coleman; no drugs, weapons, or significant cash were found in the raids.

The Tulia convictions collapsed under national scrutiny: the convictions were vacated, the prisoners were released on June 16, 2003, and Governor Rick Perry pardoned 35 of the defendants that August, while Coleman was later convicted of aggravated perjury and the defendants received about $6 million in settlements.