Shoal Creek is an 81.5-mile-long (131.2 km)[1] stream tributary of the Grand River in southwest Missouri and southeast Kansas. It begins in Barry County, Missouri southwest of Exeter and flows west through Newton and Jasper counties in Missouri before emptying into the Spring River near Riverton in Cherokee County, Kansas. During its course in Missouri it creates Grand Falls, a large waterfall south of Joplin, Missouri, and runs through Wildcat Park, which holds the best remaining examples of the globally unique chert glades and also home to the Wildcat Glades Conservation & Audubon Center.
Grand Falls is 25 feet high and spans the entire creek from bank to bank. It is called Missouri’s largest, continuously flowing natural waterfall. In the 1890s a hydroelectric plant was built at the site but has since been abandoned. A theatre, boat houses, a German Village and a dance pavilion were built by the falls in the early 20th century and the Missouri Pacific Railroad shuttled visitors to the site.