Novinger Map
Novinger is a city in Nineveh Township, Adair County, Missouri, United States. The population was 456 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Kirksville Micropolitan Statistical Area.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 0.8 square miles (2.1 km²), of which, 0.8 square miles (2.1 km²) of it is land and 0.04 square miles (0.1 km²) of it (2.44%) is water. Novinger can be found on the north side of Missouri Highway 6, approximately seven miles west of Kirksville, Missouri. Missouri Highway 149 bisects the town on a north-south axis, while Adair County Route "O", travels through the main downtown business district.
Key events in Novinger history include the arrival of the Quincy, Missouri & Pacific railroad and filing of the town plat by founder John C. Novinger in 1878, the establishment of a U.S. Post Office the next year, and the first shaft coal mine in 1883. A turn-of-the-century coal mining boom saw Welsh, Germans, Scots-Irish, Italians, natives of the Balkan countries and many others and their families immigrate from all over the world. It was this boom that finally saw Novinger incorporated as a city in 1901 as the population swelled into the thousands. However, the Great Depression, a post-World War Two switch to mostly natural gas and electric heat in American homes, and heavy industry’s lessening coal use doomed the area coal fields. The railroads had pulled out by 1950, and the last mine, Billy Creek Coal Mine southwest of Novinger, closed in January 1966. At the time of its closing Billy Creek was the last operating deep shaft mine in Missouri.
Nearby cities include Green City, Queen City, Brashear, La Plata, Kirksville.