Goodman, MO

Goodman is the northernmost town in McDonald County, set along Missouri Route 59 in the Elk River watershed between Neosho and Anderson. The town grew with the first railroad penetration into the county: the Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf Railroad built a depot at the earlier village of Donahue, which later took the Goodman name. Lowell Goodman, one of the Ozark Orchard Company's owners, supplied the name, and orchards and strawberry fields once covered 2,500 acres around the town.

Those orchards are gone, but Goodman still has the basic institutions of a small Ozarks town: City Hall, a post office, stores, service businesses, a family clinic, Terra Lewis Memorial Park, Wilbur Massey Ballpark, and a recreation department that organizes youth sports and special events. Younger children attend Goodman Elementary, while older students attend Neosho schools. Route 59 keeps the community tied to the regional road network, and the Elk River basin gives the wider county a strong water-and-outdoors identity. Goodman is a former orchard-and-railroad town that has kept its local services in place.