Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Crystal City, MO

Crystal City is a city in eastern Jefferson County, Missouri, sitting on the Mississippi River about 30 miles south of St. Louis.

Crystal City was originally called New Detroit, because the American Plate Glass Company that founded it in 1871 was organized by Captain Ebenezer B. Ward of Detroit, Michigan.

Crystal City grew up around the exceptionally pure silica sand found at the mouth of Plattin Creek, where St. Peter Sandstone proved to be of superior quality for making glass.

Crystal City's post office has been in operation since 1872.

Crystal City got its present name from the glassworks — workers at the plant insisted on calling the town Crystal City, and the name was formally adopted.

Crystal City's factory was acquired in 1895 by the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company, later PPG Industries, and its Crystal City Works Nine became the largest plate glass plant in the world.

Crystal City remained a company town until 1906, when PPG began selling lots to private citizens, and the city was incorporated in 1911.

Crystal City's glass plant produced aircraft canopy components for the Curtiss-Wright Corporation during World War II, work that led to the creation of PPG's Aircraft Glass Division.

Crystal City's glass factory, the town's economic engine for more than a century, finally shut down in December 1990, and the old plant property later sat empty and undeveloped.

Crystal City had a population of 4,740 at the 2020 census, slightly down from 4,855 in 2010.