Town file
Festus, Missouri
Festus, Missouri (Jefferson County, Missouri) is the town in one episode of Small Town Murder, the comedy true-crime podcast: episode 160, "Trust Me, I'm A Murderer" (27 February 2020). Festus sits in Jefferson County in eastern Missouri, about forty minutes from St. Louis and close to the Mississippi River.
- Town
- Festus
- County
- Jefferson County
- State
- Missouri
- Country
- USA
- Episodes
- 160
- Approximate location
- 38.219, -90.410
Episode 160 / 27 February 2020 / 142 min / full
Trust Me, I'm A Murderer
"It's in central Missouri on the eastern border, near St. Louis, and this is in Jefferson County, Missouri." about 0:06:30
The case: Murder of Tim Todd (March 26th, 1990). Read the case file.
The figures, as told in 2020
- Population
- 11,910
- Median age
- about 38
- Median household income
- just about $50,000
- Median home value
- $170,200
- Two-bedroom rent
- about $810 a month
- Cost of living
- 91 out of a hundred
- Religious
- 37%
- Property crime
- right about average
- Violent crime
- about average
History, in brief
- The area was under Spanish authority in the 1700s, and settlers were allowed a certain amount of land, mostly along the Mississippi River. about 0:07:14
- It was originally part of the Louisiana territory, which Thomas Jefferson purchased and Lewis and Clark explored. about 0:07:26
- Many of the earliest settlers here were French, with some Germans. about 0:07:55
- Festus got a post office in 1883. about 0:09:45
- Festus and Crystal City are known as the Twin Cities. about 0:09:52
- In 1843 a Michigan company searched Missouri for land with a lot of minerals. about 0:10:06
- In 1868 a mineralogist found silica sand on the east side of the Plattin Creek; samples were analysed in England and judged of superior quality for glass manufacturing. about 0:10:13
- Captain Ebenezer Ward, a man from Detroit, founded the American Plate Glass Company in a town he called New Detroit on the Mississippi River. about 0:10:46
- In 1877 the glass plant was sold to the Crystal Plate Glass Company of St. Louis, and the area grew a reputation as the glass town. about 0:11:20
- New Detroit was renamed Crystal City after the Crystal Plate Glass Company. about 0:11:34
- Crystal City was a company town: no saloons, no private enterprise, and you could not move there unless you worked for the company. about 0:11:56
- Festus was first called Tanglefoot. about 0:12:17
- Legend says a local business owner named Elizabeth Posh opened a Bible and declared the first proper name she came upon would be the town's new name; that name was Festus, from Acts 25:1. about 0:13:14
- Festus became a town in 1887, and most of its people still worked at the glass plant. about 0:13:50
- In 1895 the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company acquired the factory and the town. about 0:14:06
- Crystal City residents were not allowed to purchase private lots and turn it into a real town until 1906. about 0:14:12
The reviews read out
1 star
"Stupid, lamest city ever. Steer clear. Seriously."about 0:15:12
1 star
"People are incredibly rude, there is nothing to do unless you go to church, do drugs or drink, there is always a bad smell and traffic noise, and the only restaurants are McDonald's, Captain D's or Chinese takeaway."about 0:15:29
1 star
"A family that lived there 20 years calls it very racist, about 90% so-called entitled white people, with a lot of meth, extreme numbers of registered sex offenders and rampant theft."about 0:17:22
Nearest Small Town Murder towns
- Columbia, Illinois20 miles
- Fenton, Missouri21 miles
- Bonne Terre, Missouri22 miles
- Troy, Illinois45 miles
- New Florence, Missouri74 miles
- Cape Girardeau, Missouri78 miles
Everything here is as told in the episode, on the date it went out; figures and places may have changed since. Endings are covered: open an episode and use the spoiler switch to read them.