County of mark: Vernon County
Location of mark: US-54 & E. Locust St., Davis Park, Nevada
Marker erected by: State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission
Date marker erected: 1955
Marker text:
Nevada
Financial center and shipping point, this prairie town was founded in 1855 as the seat of Vernon County, fertile farming and coal producing area. Col. D. C. Hunter, who laid out the town, named it for Nevada City, Calif. The county, legally organized in 1855, after an earlier attempt in 1851, is named for state Senator Col. Miles Vernon.
Settled largely by Southerners, Nevada and Vernon County were deeply involved in the Kansas Border War, 1854-1859, over extension of slavery. One of the raids of the time was made by John Brown into north Vernon County. During the Civil War, the area was overrun by troops of both sides and guerrilla raiders. Federal militia burned Nevada to the ground, May 26, 1863.
After the war, prospered with the coming of the M.K.T. Railroad in 1870 and the Missouri Pacific branch in 1882. Cottey Junior College for women was founded by Virginia Cottey Stockard, 1884. In 1927 she deeded the school to the P.E.O. Sisterhood. State Hospital No. 3 was located here in 1885. Nearby Camp Clark, Missouri National Guard training area, dates from 1919.
Nevada lies between the Great Western Plains and the Ozark Highland of Missouri, in a region acquired through the 1808 and 1825 Osage Indian land cessions. Some 20 miles north of Nevada, near the mouth of the Marmaton River, the Great Osage had their village. Near them lived their kinsmen, the Little Osage. Long after they removed west, the Osage came back to mourn their dead buried in Blue Mound, one of several large, natural mounds to the north.
The first white man to visit the villages was Charles Du Tisné, 1719, on an exploring trip for the French Government. In the Spanish period, traders Auguste and Pierre Chouteau built Fort Carondelet, 1795, on the Osage River, above the villages. Explorer Zebulon M. Pike visited the Osage on his 1806 trip to the Southwest. Noted Harmony Mission, 1821-1836, and Indian school, was on the Osage River in Bates County.
William Joel Stone, Congressman, 1885-91; Missouri Governor, 1893-97; and U.S. Senator, 1903-18; made Nevada his home. The state erected the Frederick Hibbard statue of Stone on the court house lawn in 1935.
Charles Du Tisné
"Claude Charles Du Tisne (also Dutisne) led the first official French expedition to visit the Osage and the Wichita Indians in Kansas in 1719
"Du Tisne made a second attempt later that summer to reach the plains by land. He proceeded straight west from Kaskaskia, through the Ozarks region, and after a journey of about 250 miles (400 km) he reached the village of the "Great Osages." The Osage village was in Vernon County, Missouri about four miles (6 km) from the Osage River atop a ridge amidst flat rich prairies. The village location is today commemorated as a State Historical Site.
"The Osage lived in longhouses. Du Tisne said the Osage had many horses "which they steal from the Pani and can be bought from them." They also had buffalo robes and deer skins to trade. Like the Missouria, the Osage had adopted the practice of the Indians of the plains border of journeying west to hunt buffalo, living in tipis during that time and leaving only the old, infirm, and small children in the village.
"Du Tisne does not portray the Osage as numerous. Their village was about 100 houses and 200 warriors, numbers consistent with a population of little more than 1,000. Quite likely there were other Osage villages in the area of which Du Tinse was not aware or did not visit.
"Du Tisne was impressed with the physical size of the Osage, often more than six feet tall, and well-proportioned. They wore their hair in a scalp-lock. He was less impressed with their character, "in general they are traitors who easily break their promises." Du Tisne also commented on the dual nature of Osage politics and organization, the existence of the two moities, the Hon-ga and Tsi-hzu, the multiple clans and bands, all of which produced a large number of Osage leaders, none of whom seeming to have much authority. There is little in Du Tisne's narrative to suggest that the Osage had yet reached the power and prominence they were soon to enjoy.
"Like the Missouria the Osage were opposed to having Du Tisne pass through their territory to the villages of the Wichita. Most of all they worried that the French would sell the Wichita guns. Finally, after extensive negotiations in which Du Tisne resorted to threats that the French would suspend trade relations, he was allowed to continue, but he was allowed to take only three guns, trade goods, and his interpreter" ~ Wikipedia