Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Umbarger, TX

Umbarger is an unincorporated community and census-designated place on U.S. Highway 60 in western Randall County, about ten miles southwest of Canyon, and it is part of the Amarillo Metropolitan Statistical Area.

The community began in 1895 when rancher S. G. Umbarger leased the site from railroad survey lands; he purchased it two years later, and the Panhandle and Santa Fe Railway established a switch there in 1898.

In 1902 a group of German Catholics from the Schulenburg area of south central Texas settled in Umbarger, a migration pioneered by Pius Friemel, and Swiss immigrants followed from 1911 into the late 1920s.

Under Father John J. Dolje, St. Mary's Catholic Church — originally called Marienkirche — was moved to its present location, and the current church was built in 1929.

St. Mary's Church is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as one of Texas's famous painted churches.

In 1945, Italian prisoners of war held at the nearby Camp Hereford decorated the interior of St. Mary's with paintings and wood carvings, making it one of the rarest and most extensive examples of POW art in the United States.

Every November, Umbarger hosts its annual German Sausage Festival at St. Mary's Parish Hall.

Umbarger's public school district was established in 1904 and consolidated with the Canyon Independent School District in 1964, while its parochial school was run by the Sisters of Mercy.

Local sources long reported about 327 residents in the wider Umbarger community, while the Census Bureau counted 123 people in the Umbarger CDP at the 2020 census; the community keeps its own post office, ZIP code 79091.