Tarkio, Missouri.
Typical home $121,622 (-2.0% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$323 (+102%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $2,462 -2%
- $124,085$121,622 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $15,509 +15%
- $106,113$121,622 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Tarkio$638
- Missouri$1,393
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 25 years.
Typical home values in Tarkio, MO fell 2.0% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Tarkio, Atchison County, Missouri
Tarkio is a city of 1,506 people in Atchison County. Half its households earn more than $56,927 a year and half less, against $58,750 across Atchison County; 14% of its people live below the poverty line. 73% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 27% are rented. Unemployment in Atchison County was 2.9% in August 2026, and the county had 5.6% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then shops.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Tarkio is a small city in the northwest corner of Missouri, in Atchison County. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and incomes run a little below the county's. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and freezing days common, while July brings warm summer days.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with shops, manufacturing, and transport, warehouses and utilities also employing many people. Across Atchison County, the largest workplaces include Community Hospital Association, Rock Port R-II Schools and Tarkio R-I Schools. Commutes are fairly short, and few people work from home.
Things to do. The Mule Barn Theatre is a theatre in or beside town. A short drive away, Cow Branch is a river, and Indian Cave State Park, a protected area, is a longer drive away.
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- 683households
- 23%of adults have a degree
- 14%below the poverty line
- 23 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Atchison County had 1,706 jobs in 2025, 5.6% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 33° and lows near 15°; warmest in July, with highs near 85° and lows near 66°.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Tarkio weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Atchison County
- Community Hospital AssociationCritical access hospital106FTE
- Rock Port R-II SchoolsSchool district62FTE
- Tarkio R-I SchoolsSchool district62FTE
- Fairfax R-iii SchoolsSchool district23FTE
- Northwest Missouri IndustriesSheltered workshops22
- Rock Port (Phelps City) GrainGrain elevators merchant wholesalers grain21
- Hy-VeeSupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores20
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 3 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 63 people in all across the county; Tarkio has two of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- TornadoesVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Tarkio’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Atchison County.
Tarkio home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Tarkio$121,622
- Missouri$265,387
- United States$366,157
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Tarkio address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Tarkio — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.