OSCEOLA post-village of St. Clair co., Missouri, on the Osage river, 132 miles W. S. W from Jefferson City, has 1 newspaper office. (Baldwin's New and Complete Gazetteer of the United States..., 1854)
OSEOLA(sic), The county seat of St. Clair county, Oseola township, on the Osage river, 250 miles above its mouth, and two miles below the mouth of Sac river. The distance from St. Louis, by river, is 350 miles, and by railroad and stage 240, and from Jefferson City 110. There is fine navigation on the Osage, from its mouth to Oseola, from the 1st of February to 15th June. A stage runs daily each way from Oseola to Quincy, on the Grand Southern stage route, a distance of 15 miles.
Oseola was first settled in the year 1837, chiefly by immigrants from other States. The post office has been established about 20 years. The town is beautifully situated on the right and south bank of the river, which, with the commercial advantages it derives from the country around, gives it all the elements necessary to render it. one of the most important towns of the West. It is now the most important commercial point in South-western Missouri. The business for the year 1859 will amount to over half a million of dollars. It is the shipping point for some twenty counties. Large quantities of lead, from the mines in Jasper and Huston, are taken to this point by teamsters, then by steamboat to St. Louis. There is one newspaper published here, viz.: the Oseola Democrat (weekly), Kapp & Dwin proprietors. The Oseola Academy is a flourishing institution, with an attendance of eight pupils. The Masons have one lodge, viz.: Oseola Lodge, No. 61, and the Odd Fellows’ Lodge, No. 65. The town contains three churches, one Methodist Episcopal, one new school (Presbyterian), and one Christian church, one branch bank of the Merchants’ Bank of St. Louis; capital of branch bank $‘200,000. There are five attorneys, two notaries public, seven dealers in boots and shoes, one brick yard, one cabinet‘ maker, ten carpenters, one wagon maker, six general stores, one gunsmith, one harness maker, two leather dealers, two good hotels, one watch maker and jeweler, two livery stables, two physicians, two stove dealers, &c., &c. The chief products are corn, oats, wheat and tobacco; timber, oak, hickory, sycamore, ash, walnut, cherry, mulberry, &c.; minerals, coal, lead and iron. Average price of uncultivated land is from $3 to $5 per acre, and cultivated $6 to $8. Population 400. Judges of the County Court; Joshua Rickman, Wm. Rice, Uriel L. Sutherland. County Sheriff, Robert P. Cocke. (Missouri State Gazetteer..., 1860)