Osage Hills

Coordinates: 36°19′15″N 95°25′22″W / 36.320929°N 95.422750°W / 36.320929; -95.422750

The Osage Hills is a hilly area in Oklahoma, commonly known as The Osage. The name refers to the broad rolling hills and rolling tallgrass prairie and Cross Timbers encompassing Osage County and surrounding areas, including portions of Mayes, Tulsa, Washington and Kay Counties. The Osage is the southern extension of the Flint Hills of Kansas.

The Osage

The Osage contains some of the largest remaining remnants of the tallgrass prairie that covered much of the Great Plains (see Tallgrass Prairie Preserve). Kansans generally refer to the northern portion of this same prairie system as the Flint Hills.

Historically, most of this area was the last reserve of the Osage Indians and its rugged environs hid outlaws and illicit activity well into the twentieth century. The Nellie Johnstone No. 1, a well drilled near present-day Bartlesville, struck oil on April 15, 1897, and became the first of thousands of commercial oil wells in Oklahoma. The Osage Indians had wisely held on to their mineral rights following the dissolution of the reservation system, and the royalties from the oil underneath the hills made them one of the richest tribes in the nation.

Osage

The Osage Nation, a Native American tribe in the United States, is the source of most other terms containing the word "osage".

Osage can also refer to:

Osage is a part of many placenames, including:

Osage River

The Osage River is a 276-mile-long (444 km) tributary of the Missouri River in central Missouri in the United States. The Osage River is the 8th largest river in Missouri. The river drains a mostly rural area of 15,300 square miles (40,000 km²). The watershed includes an area of east-central Kansas and a large portion of west-central and central Missouri where it drains northwest areas of the Ozark Plateau. The river flows generally easterly, then northeasterly for the final 80 miles (130 km) where it joins the Missouri River. It is impounded in two major locations. Most of the river has been converted into a chain of two reservoirs, the Harry S. Truman Reservoir and the Lake of the Ozarks.

Description

The Osage is formed in southwestern Missouri, approximately 14 miles (23 km) northeast of Nevada on the Bates-Vernon county line, by the confluence of the Marais des Cygnes and Little Osage rivers. (The Marais des Cygnes is sometimes counted as part of the river, placing its headwaters in eastern Kansas and bringing its total length to over 500 miles (800 km)). The combined stream flows east past the Schell-Osage Wildlife Area into St. Clair County, widening into a long meandering arm of the Harry S. Truman Reservoir, approximately 40 miles (64 km) long. The lake receives the South Grand River as a second arm of the reservoir from the northwest, as well as the Pomme de Terre River from the south. The two arms of the reservoir join near the Harry S. Truman Dam in central Benton County.

Osage Nation

The Osage are a Midwestern Native American Siouan-speaking tribe of the Great Plains who originated in the Ohio River valley in the area of present-day Arkansas and Missouri . The term "Osage" is considered an ancient name which roughly translates into "mid-waters".

After years of war with the invading Iroquois, by the mid-17th century, the Osage migrated from the Ohio valley with other Siouan tribes, settling west on their historic lands in present-day Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas . At the height of their power in the early 18th century, the Osage had become the dominant power in their region, controlling the area between the Missouri and Red River to the South.

The 19th-century painter George Catlin described the Osage as

The missionary Isaac McCoy described the Osage as an "uncommonly fierce, courageous, warlike nation", and Washington Irving said they were the "finest looking Indians I have ever seen in the West."

The Osage language is part of the Dhegihan branch of the Siouan stock of Native American languages. They originally lived among speakers of the same Dhegihan stock, such as the Kansa, Ponca, Omaha, and Quapaw in the Ohio Valley. Researchers believed that the tribes likely became differentiated in languages and cultures after leaving the lower Ohio country. The Omaha and Ponca settled in the present-day area of Nebraska, the Kansa in Kansas, and the Quapaw in Arkansas.