Purdy, Missouri

Purdy is a town of about 1,000 people located on State Highway 37 in northwest Barry County. It was platted in 1880 when the Frisco Railroad was being built through the area, and the first train reached the community in 1881. The place was initially called Winslow after a railroad executive, but the name was soon changed to Purdy, after George A. Purdy, a railroad land agent and local businessman from Pierce City.

Purdy prospered during its early years, and by 1890, it had a population over 300. The town continued to grow for the next couple of decades. Incorporated as a city in 1904, its population stood at about 460 when a Springfield newspaperman visited the town in 1912, although he estimated the number of residents at close to 600.

The reporter found that Purdy had "an excellent high school" and four churches, namely the Baptist, Methodist, Christian, and Presbyterian. Among the businesses in town were a bank, two mills, two elevators, a lumberyard, a real estate agent, a hardware and implement store, and a combination grocery/flour and feed store. The poultry, dairy, and fruit industries were all thriving in the Purdy region.

Purdy's population stayed pretty steady for the next fifty years after the newspaperman's visit, and then the town enjoyed a growth spurt, nearly doubling in population from 1960 to 1980, when the number of residents stood at 928. The population reached a peak of slightly over 1,100 in 2000 and today (as of 2020 census) stands at 1,031.

During the 1980s, there was quite an uproar in Purdy over the high school's longstanding no-dancing policy. A number of students and parents banded together to sue the school over the policy, and the dispute made national headlines. A federal judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, and Purdy held its first-ever dance on school property in December of 1988. Although an appeals court later upheld the school's right to ban dancing on campus, dances gradually became accepted because of changing attitudes and a change in board members, and today Purdy High regularly hosts school dances just as almost every other public school in the country does.