County of Marker: Saint Clair County
Location of Marker: 2nd St. & Pine St., courthouse lawn, Osceola
Marker Erected by: State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission
Date Marker Erected: 1955
Marker Text:
OSCEOLA
Early thriving Osage River post, Osceola was settled during the middle 1830's largely by Southerns. The settlement and its first store were known as the "crossing of the Osage at Crow and Crutchfield's," until the name of the Indian warrior was adopted. In 1841 Osceola became the seat of newly organized St. Clair County, named for Gen Arthur St. Clair of the Revolutionary War.
In the Civil War, Osceola was the first town of wealth and consequence victimized in the atrocious raids characteristic of the war on the Missouri-Kansas border. Kansas troops under Gen. James H. Lane, on Sept. 23, 1861, looted and burned the defenseless town to ashes. Lane reported taking a vast amount of stores. $150,000 in bank deposits was saved, being removed before the raid.
In 1860, Osceola (inc.twp.) had a 2,077 pop. and was a trade center and a distribution point for goods shipped on the Osage River. In 1865, it was almost in ruins with a population of some 183. Osceola did not enjoy renewed growth until the Kansas City, Osceola, and Southern R.R. (Frisco) was completed to this point, 1885.
Osceola serves as a trading center and seat of justice for a grain, poultry, and livestock farming county. Both the Ozark Highland and Western Prairie regions of Missouri are represented in the area.
The Osage Indians gave up their claims to this region in their first Missouri land cession, 1808, and many of their campsites have been found in the county. Evidences of prehistoric man have also been found and one cave dwelling at Monegaw Springs has yielded a number of artifacts.
Here lived Waldo P. Johnson (1817-1885), U.S. Senator, Confederate States Senator from Missouri, and President of the State Constitutional Convention, 1875. Here also lived his son, Thomas M. Johnson (1851-1919), noted Greek scholar and bibliophile.
Among points of interest are the Boy Scout Reservation, to the east, and near there a pioneer log-cabin home built in the early 1850's, one of the few to survive the Civil War. Two miles south of town, in a scenic woodland valley, is the junction of the Sac and Osage Rivers.