Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Ginger Blue, MO

Ginger Blue is an incorporated village in southwestern McDonald County, Missouri, on Missouri Route 59 between Lanagan to the north and Noel to the south.

Ginger Blue began in 1915, when a railroad man from Kansas City built a summer lodge on the banks of the Elk River for city folk who wanted to get away and fish.

The lodge was named Ginger Blue after a Native American chief who was said to have lived near the site in the 1700s.

The Ginger Blue resort flourished for decades — by the 1920s visitors from the three-state area thronged there to enjoy nearby caves, the river, and sulphur wells — and tourism remained strong through the 1970s, though the old lodge was eventually lost to fire.

The Village of Ginger Blue was incorporated on January 21, 1965.

The Elk River curves through the southern part of the village, which covers about 0.26 square miles in total.

Ginger Blue had 110 residents in the 2000 census, and the 2010 census counted 61 people in 28 households.

The 2020 census counted just 37 people in Ginger Blue — a drop of nearly 40 percent in a decade — and the village is served by the McDonald County R-I School District.