Maryville, MO
Maryville is the county seat, and US-71 Business is its main street; US-71 and US-136 meet on the east side of the city, and Route V is another way out. Northwest Missouri State University, Mosaic Medical Center – Maryville, a Kawasaki assembly plant for utility engines and Mozingo Lake Park are all in or near town, with Northwest Missouri Regional Airport just outside. The Maryville Treatment Center's landmark yellow steeple stands on the bluffs above the One Hundred and Two River on the east side. St. Joseph is approximately 40 miles south.
Burlington Junction, MO
Burlington Junction, 12 miles northwest of Maryville, is where US-136 meets the northern end of Route 113. The town was named in 1879 for the junction of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy and the Wabash railroads near its original site, and the Possum Walk Hotel there is on the National Register. It is the second-largest city in the county and home to West Nodaway High School.
Ravenwood, MO
The railroad reached Ravenwood in 1887, the year the town was laid out, and Route 46 now runs through it just north of the US-136 junction, with the Platte River past the west side. Maryville is approximately ten miles west on US-136, and the Northeast Nodaway County R-V schools are based here. For a breakdown near town, give dispatch the road, Route 46 or US-136, and your side of the Platte.
Skidmore, MO
Skidmore stands on Route 113 a couple of miles north of the Holt County line, with the Nodaway River along its west side and Florida Creek joining the Nodaway just north of town. It is the lowest-lying settlement in Nodaway County. The town was platted in 1880 on land M. Skidmore gave the Nodaway Valley Railroad Company, and Maryville is approximately eleven miles to the east-northeast.
Barnard, MO
Where Route M meets Route WW, on the east bank of the One Hundred and Two River, is Barnard, approximately 2.5 miles east of US-71. Bolckow is to the south, in northern Andrew County. Platted in 1870 and named for a railroad superintendent, Barnard now houses every grade of the South Nodaway County R-IV district in one building.
Conception Junction, MO
Conception Junction takes its name from a railroad junction between the Wabash and the Chicago Great Western, both lines now gone. It is the largest community in the Tri-C Area, 1.5 miles north of Conception and its abbey, with the Platte River just west of town. Laid out in 1895 as New Conception and once also called Monastery, it is where the Jefferson C-123 School District is based.
Pickering, MO
Route 148 runs north from Maryville to Pickering, about seven miles, and the One Hundred and Two River flows past about a mile east of town. The Tenaska Clear Creek Energy Center, a wind farm, lies directly west, and Hopkins is further north. Laid out in 1871, Pickering was named by Josiah Coleman for Pickering Clark, a railroad man.
Graham, MO
Graham, founded in 1839 as Jacksonville, is one of the oldest settlements in the Platte Purchase. It lies nine miles west of US-71 and just across the Nodaway River from Maitland in Holt County, with the White Cloud Wind Farm to the north. Nodaway-Holt High School and its district offices are in Graham, and Simpson's College is listed on the National Register.
Parnell, MO
Parnell started out in 1887 as a station stop on the Chicago Great Western's Diagonal Route, which ran from Kansas City to Waterloo, Iowa. Route 46 and Route NN meet in town, half a mile from the Worth County line, and the Platte River runs along its west side. Parnell was home to Ben and Jimmy Jones, the Kentucky Derby trainers, whose family ranch lay on the northeast side of town. Sheridan, in Worth County, lies to the north.
Guilford, MO
Named for the Revolutionary War battle of Guilford Court House, Guilford sits where Route M crosses Route AH, half a mile east of the Platte River and three miles north of the Andrew County line. Barnard lies to the west along Route M and Whitesville to the south. The village school closed in 2013, when all grades moved to Barnard.
Arkoe, MO
Before Arkoe there was Bridgewater, a mile to the north, where the county's first railroad put two bridges across a bend of the One Hundred and Two River and the county built a road bridge between them. The railroad later moved its depot to Arkoe, which lies in the river's very flat western plain, 6 miles southeast of Maryville. The rail line closed in 1979. The name may come from an 18th-century novel in which an arkoe is "water surrounded with wood."
Clyde, MO
Clyde, the smallest community in the Tri-C Area, lies one mile east of Conception Junction, with Conception to the southwest and Ravenwood to the north. Its Benedictine convent of Perpetual Adoration holds one of the largest collections of saints' relics in the United States, and the village took its name from Clydesdale horses an early resident bought. "The convent at Clyde" is a clear reference point to give when you call.
