Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Services in West Plains, MO

West Plains is a city in the south-central Missouri Ozarks near the Arkansas line, and it is the county seat and largest city of Howell County, with 12,184 residents at the 2020 census — it anchors its own micropolitan statistical area, which consists of all of Howell County.

West Plains' residents lived in 5,146 households at the 2020 census.

The city's roots go back to 1832, when settler Josiah Howell — the man Howell County is named for — made the first settlement in the Howell Valley; the town was named West Plains because it sat on a prairie west of Thomasville, then the nearest town.

West Plains became the Howell County seat when the county was organized in 1857, was laid out the following year, and was incorporated as a city in 1883.

The Civil War nearly erased West Plains: caught near the Union-Confederate border, the town was largely burned to the ground amid constant guerrilla warfare, and over 90 percent of Howell County's population had fled by the war's end.

The railroad transformed West Plains — after the Kansas City, Fort Scott and Memphis line arrived, with the first train rolling in on Christmas Day 1882, the population surged from about 350 in 1880 to just over 2,000 by 1890.

West Plains is haunted by one of America's strangest disasters: on April 13, 1928, a massive explosion destroyed the Bond Dance Hall downtown, killing 37 people and injuring 22; the cause was never determined, and 20 unidentified victims lie in a mass grave at Oak Lawn Cemetery beneath the Rock of Ages monument erected in 1929 — the event was later fictionalized in Daniel Woodrell's novel The Maid's Version.

An F4 tornado tore through the West Plains area on April 2, 1982, killing three people and injuring at least 28.

West Plains is home to Missouri State University–West Plains, a two-year satellite campus of Missouri State University that brings college education to the rural south-central Ozarks.

West Plains High School, serving grades 9 through 12, also draws in students from the surrounding rural elementary districts after eighth grade; its graduates include Major League Baseball player and manager Bill Virdon.