History

Joe DeLong, born in 1920, began working in his father’s blacksmith shop at the age of 12.  The Great Depression of the 1930s made it difficult to make a living, so Mr. DeLong moved to Kansas City to work as an aircraft mechanic.  In 1944, after brief stays in Topeka and Hutchison, Kansas, Joe returned to Jefferson City, Missouri, where he and his wife, Betty Jo, opened DeLong’s, Incorporated.  They did $50 of business in their first month.

In 1954, they moved the company to its current location on the corner of Dix Road and Industrial Drive.  Since that time, DeLong’s has expanded from selling bridges only in Missouri to selling bridges in over twenty-one states.