With the American frontier moving quickly westward, Osborne County, nestled in the Blue Hills of north-central Kansas, began its official life in 1867. Though the county was not organized until four years later, settlers of various backgrounds sought homesteads there and quickly filled the untamed land. By 1881, the county boasted an agrarian population of 12,000. From the hunting grounds of early Native American inhabitants to the agricultural roots set down by settlers after Kansas achieved statehood in 1861, from the coming of the railroad to the laying of state and federal highways, the...