Biohazard Cleanup Near North Downing Downing, MO

Downing is a city in Schuyler County in far northern Missouri, and it is part of the Kirksville Micropolitan Statistical Area.

The Downing area was one of the earliest settled parts of Schuyler County, with Henry Downing building a home and claiming land a few miles south of the present town around 1837.

The first school in Schuyler County was established near present-day Downing in the spring of 1841, when a crude log cabin was built for the purpose and Esther Hathaway was employed as teacher.

The early settlement was known as Cherry Grove before the Missouri Town Company laid out the town of Downing in September 1872, naming it for the company's president, H. H. Downing.

The Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska Railway constructed Downing's depot in April 1872 on land donated by James Prime, and a post office opened in 1873.

Downing was once a tobacco market town: at its peak in 1902, over 155,000 pounds of tobacco were dealt through the Downing warehouses.

The Downing Railroad Depot was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 and now serves as a museum; moved about a quarter mile from its original trackside location, it is the centerpiece of a city park that also includes the former Downing jail.

By the late 1880s the Downing business district included four general stores, two drug stores, two grocers, two hardware stores, a restaurant, a blacksmith, and two hotels.

Downing had 300 residents at the 2020 census, down from 335 in 2010.

At the 2010 census, Downing's 335 residents lived in 160 households within the city's 0.67 square miles.