24/7 Biohazard and Crime Scene Cleanup in Duenweg, MO

Duenweg, in Jasper County just east of Joplin, began as a lead and zinc mining camp named in 1895 for Otto Duenweg and his father Louis, Terre Haute, Indiana investors who bought major mining interests at the site.

European-American settlement of the Duenweg area began in 1855, when brothers Elijah C. and James C. Webb arrived from Overton County, Tennessee.

A post office named Duenweg has operated since 1895, the year the mining camp took the Duenweg name.

In 1903 the Southwest Missouri Electric Railway was extended into Duenweg, linking the mining camp by streetcar to Joplin, Webb City, Carterville, and Prosperity.

Duenweg's most famous crime came on February 17, 1915, when bank robbers looted $1,806.50 and locked cashier F.B. Wilkinson in the vault — their getaway failed when they missed the streetcar to Joplin by one minute, and a posse caught all three men about an hour later.

Otto Duenweg, only 25 when the town was named for him, died just 13 years later in 1908 in Manitou Springs, Colorado.

Despite its mining-era origins, Duenweg was not officially incorporated as a city until 1954; it expanded by annexation in 2002.

Duenweg had 1,495 residents at the 2020 census, up sharply from 1,121 in 2010 and 1,034 in 2000.

The city covers just 2.04 square miles, with Interstates 44 and 49 running together across its southeast corner and Business Loop 44 through its center.

Duenweg sits in the historic Tri-State mining district; the surrounding Oronogo-Duenweg mining belt, where lead and zinc mining peaked in 1916, later became a federal Superfund cleanup area.