Pemiscot County is a county located in the southeastern corner in the Bootheel in the U.S. state of Missouri, with the Mississippi River forming its eastern border. As of the 2010 census, the population was 18,296. The largest city and county seat is Caruthersville. The county was officially organized on February 19, 1851, and is named for the local bayou, taken from the Fox dialect word, "pem-eskaw", meaning "liquid mud". This has been an area of cotton plantations and later other commodity crops.