Fairdealing, MO

Fairdealing is an unincorporated community and census-designated place spread across northeastern Ripley County and western Butler County in southeastern Missouri. U.S. Route 160 runs through it, about sixteen miles southwest of Poplar Bluff, and the post office has carried the Fairdealing name since 1883. The two-county footprint can make the map look more complicated than the town feels; the road, postal address, and local name keep the community together.

Several old local stories are attached to the name Fairdealing, all variations on the idea that someone got a square trade at this crossroads. The post-office date is the steadier landmark, and it places the community's identity in the nineteenth century. The 2020 census counted 543 people, which is exactly the scale suggested by the place: a small road community with Poplar Bluff close enough for larger errands and the wooded southeastern Missouri landscape around it. The local scoop is that Fairdealing is a two-county place with one familiar name, a long-lived post office, and U.S. 160 doing the everyday connecting.