Paragould is the county seat of Greene County, and the 19th-largest city in Arkansas. The city is located in northeastern Arkansas atop Crowley's Ridge, a geologic anomaly contained within the Arkansas delta. The city's name is a blend combining the last names of competing railroad magnates J. W. Paramore and Jay Gould. Paramore’s Texas & Saint Louis Railway (later the Cotton Belt) and Gould’s St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway (later the Missouri Pacific) intersected here in 1882. A group of citizens chose the name, and it is believed to be the only city in the world with this name. Gould objected to his name’s being second and refused to list the new town on his schedules.