The Kinderhookian (early Tournaisian) St. Joe Limestone was sampled at two quarries in the Ozark Plateau. A total of 110 oriented core samples were collected from brick red to gray crinoidal limestone and mudstone at approximately 20-cm stratigraphic intervals. All samples were reversely magnetized. A selection procedure based upon directional stability of demagnetized vectors restricts the stable data population to 39 and 43 samples at each site with paleomagnetic pole positions of 46.2¿W longitude, 37.0¿S latitude, α95=1.67, &kgr;=189; and 50.7¿W longitude, 40.6¿S latitude, α95=1.48, &kgr;=218, respectively. These results from 'cratonic' North America are the first from early Carboniferous rocks and delimit a period of active apparent polar wander to the latest Devonian and earliest Carboniferous. The relative motion involved a clockwise rotation of the plate. This was immediately followed by a quasi-static period during the Carboniferous. However, beginning in the latest Carboniferous the North American plate rotated counterclockwise with a large northerly component of motion about a tectonic rotational point at 62¿N, 150¿E.