Rarely anymore in our busy 21st Century lives does one ever take the time to stop and consider just what it took for those first non-native settlers, those of the 1860s and 1870s, to create and organize the 898 miles of virgin hills and prairie into what we know today as Osborne County, Kansas.

Cal had sent a man to Russell to call for a requisition from the governor. A vote was taken and our crowd won by four. The chairman stated it wouldn’t do them [the colonists] any good, as they had to have the proper papers signed by the governor. Major Henry D. Markley said they had attended to that on coming into the state, and produced the papers and said it had to be settled right now, and it was." - Frank A. Rothenberger.

Apart from the county seat question, Calvin Reasoner’s chief objective for the June 3rd meeting, legal organization of the county, was accomplished. Charles Cunningham, Samuel Chatfield, and Frank Stafford were elected special county commissioners. Frank Thompson was named county clerk and Osborne City became the temporary county seat. Cunningham, A. B. Fleming, and Charles Bullock were appointed to draft a petition to the governor praying for recognition of Osborne County’s legal organization.

The census presented at the meeting included all parties having claims in the county and showed that at the time half of the adult males in the county were bachelors. Unfortunately the first names of all women and children residing in the county were not listed in the census, and so the state authorities found the census defective. They stopped action on recognition of the county’s organization until a second census was completed. This was done and on September 12, 1871, Kansas Governor James Harvey issued a proclamation declaring our county organized and a legal entity. Elections for the various county offices were held that November and Osborne County was officially organized.