Vickie Peek | Reporter

BURLINGAME — Nearly 100 people sang “Happy Birthday” to Osage County at its 150th birthday celebration Feb. 11 at the Schuyler Museum annex.

Eileen Davis, president of the Osage County Historical Society, started the celebration by telling the audience that the actual date the county officially became Osage County had been in question. There are two histories of the county stating that Feb. 11, 1959, was the date, and two other histories giving March 11, 1859, as the official date.

Davis went to the Kansas State Historical Society, in Topeka, to find a copy of the original legislative bill to determine the true official date.

In her research, Davis found “that the name of Weller County be and hereby is changed to Osage” in Council Bill No. 68 of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Kansas, “An Act to change the name of Weller County and to provide for the organization thereof.”

Bill No. 68 was passed by the House of Representatives on Feb. 8, 1859, and approved by territorial governor Samuel Medary on Feb. 11, 1859. A copy of the handwritten document was displayed at the celebration.

“Osage County was named to honor the Indians who once lived in the area,” Davis said. She conjectured that the name might have been changed because Senator John B. Weller, a California senator, was a strong pro-slavery advocate.

Davis told several firsts for the County. Some of those firsts are:

The first newspaper was called the Weekly Osage Chronicle founded in 1863 in Burlingame by Marshall Murdock.

The first white settlers were John Frele and his wife in June 1854.

The first town was Council City, established in 1855 south of Burlingame.

The first recorded marriage was Jan. 23, 1860.

The first divorce was filed on July 1, 1861.

Linda Fagan, a member of the Osage County Historical Society and a board member of the Schuyler Museum, spoke to the audience about her ancestors, the Bratton family.

George and Rebecca Bratton and their four sons came from Pennsylvania in 1854 to help make Kansas a free state and to homestead land. They brought 15 men with them to Council City.

They had been led to believe that Council City was a town. When they arrived, they had to camp on Switzler Creek because there was no town.

In the fall of 1859, they opened Bratton Hotel with 25 rooms in Burlingame, and George became a Burlingame city council member in 1860.

Fagan told the audience about the many contributions of the Bratton family. One of their sons, Robert, became the sheriff of Osage County in 1867.

Jean Timm, treasurer of the Osage County Historical Society, told the history of the 110-Mile Creek Crossing. George Sibley gave it this name because it was 110 miles from Fort Osage, the starting point for an expedition Sibley led for the federal survey of the road to Santa Fe authorized by Congress in 1825.

As early as the late 1840s, two men had settled in sod houses at the crossing, but it was when Fry McGee came in 1854 that the real history began.

McGee was the son of James and Eleanor McGee, an upstanding and prosperous Kansas City pioneer family. The McGee family was pro-slavery.

In 1848 or 1849, Fry McGee and his family headed to Oregon on a cattle drive. When they were returned to Kansas City, the family crossed the 110-Mile Creek Crossing.

Sometime between 1852 and 1854, he brought his family to live at the crossing and purchased the land. He built a hotel, a stage station, a barn and later a sawmill. McGee’s brother, Mobillion, and his friend, William Harris, came to help build up the land. Later his brothers, James and Moran, also came. The site became an important crossing on the Santa Fe Trail.

The crossing was located about 100 yards west of the settlement. They charged 25 cents for wagons to cross the bridge they had built over the creek. A ford in the creek allowed wagons to pass through the area without paying the toll. Fry McGee had the ford watered down every day so it was too slick for wagons and the bridge had to be used.

Harris was a gambler and a whiskey maker. Whiskey was in demand by the Indians and frontiersmen. When the Indians received their allotment checks they headed to the crossing. It is believed Old Keokuk, chief of the Sac and Foxes, was a friend of McGee and Harris and brought buffalo tongue as a token of goodwill.

It was a lawless time and there are harrowing stories that have been passed down about the McGee crossing. Many wealthy travelers were never heard from again after they passed through the crossing.

Richard Stewart, guest speaker for the event, is an author and historian from the Kansas City area. He provided more information on the Kansas City McGee family.

Fry McGee’s father and others bought the town of Kansa, which is now Kansas City. McGee had been a Westport merchant in Kansas City before moving to 110-Mile Creek Crossing.