Licking, MO

Licking is Texas County’s largest city, with 2,851 residents in the 2020 census, set among the Ozarks of southern Missouri. Its name comes from a mineral lick near the original town site, and an early version called the community Buffalo Lick makes the landscape connection even plainer. U.S. 63 and Missouri 32 meet at Licking, giving the city a practical role for the surrounding hills, farms, and forest roads. The town is small, but it is the place many nearby routes point toward.

Local life has the sturdy shape you would expect from a county crossroads. Licking R-VIII runs the elementary and high schools, and the city library operates as a branch of the Texas County Library. The mineral-lick name gives the place a memorable hook, but the day-to-day story is about school drop-offs, highway traffic, local shops, and the Ozark land beyond town. Licking is not trying to sound grand; it has the kind of name that people remember after one road sign, then a geography that makes the name feel earned.