Records from Osage County

Abstract: The majority of the records the State Archives holds from Osage County come from the probate and district courts. These records are concerned with marriages and divorces, estate administration and guardianship cases, and naturalization of individuals as United States citizens. Other records from this county include deeds, mortgages, and other related records from the Register of Deeds; school censuses, registers, and related records from the County Superintendent of Public Instruction; and some records from Agency, Elk and Ridgeway Townships. The bulk of the records cover the last quarter of the nineteenth and first quarter of the twentieth centuries, and most of the records from Osage County are on microfilm.

Administrative History: Osage County, directly south of Shawnee County in eastern Kansas, started as Weller County. It was organized in 1855 by the first territorial legislature and named for Congressman John B. Weller of Ohio, who was later governor of California. The county was renamed in 1859 for the Osage river, which flows through it, and the river was named for the Native American tribe. Much of the present-day county at that time consisted of land still belonging to the Fox and Sac Native American tribes.

The Santa Fe Trail traverses Osage County, and coal was discovered near Carbondale in 1860, influencing the route of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad through the county.

The county seat for Osage is Lyndon, though Osage City is the only city in the county to be incorporated separately from a township. Townships include Agency, Arvonia, Barclay, Burlingame, Dragoon, Elk, Fairfax, Grant, Junction, Lincoln, Melvern, Olivet, Ridgeway, Scranton, Superior, and Valley Brook.

[Kansas State Historical Society. "Kansas Counties -- Osage County, Kansas." http://www.kshs.org/genealogists/places/counties.php?county=OS (accessed 8 July 2009).]

[Osage County. "Historic Osage County." http://www.osageco.org/MV2Base.asp?VarCN=18 (accessed 8 July 2009).]