Oskaloosa, Iowa

East side of public square, 1864

The Sam Smith coal mine in 1895, located in what is now the 1300 block of High Avenue West.

Theodore Roosevelt campaigns in the Oskaloosa city square in the fall of 1912.

Oskaloosa derives its name from Ouscaloosa who, according to town lore, was a Creek princess who married Seminole chief Osceola. A local tradition was that her name meant "last of the beautiful." (This interpretation of "last of the beautiful" is not correct. "Oskaloosa" in the Mvskoke-Creek language means "black rain," from the Mvskoke words "oske" (rain) and "lvste" (black). "loosa" is an English corruption of the Mvskoke word "lvste". See for example the Wikipedia entry for Tuskaloosa, eponym of the town of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. In addition the Mvskoke word "Ouscaloosa" means "Black Water").[6] The first European-American settlers arrived in 1835, led by Nathan Boone, youngest son of frontiersman Daniel Boone. Acting on instructions from Stephen W. Kearny, he selected this as the first site of Fort Des Moines, located on a high ridge between the Skunk and Des Moines rivers. The ridge was originally called the Narrows.

The town was formally platted in 1844 when William Canfield moved his trading post from the Des Moines River to Oskaloosa. The town was designated by the legislature as the county seat in the same year.[6]

The Des Moines Valley Railroad built north from Eddyville, Iowa through Oskaloosa to Pella, Iowa in 1864. In 1873, this became the Keokuk and Des Moines Railroad, and in 1887, it was leased by the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad.[7] The Central Iowa Railway followed, which became the Iowa Central Railway in 1888 and was absorbed by the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway in 1901. In 1883, the Burlington and Western Railway reached Oskaloosa; this was a narrow gauge line that was widened to Standard Gauge in 1902 and then merged with the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad.[8]

On January 6, 1882, most of the buildings in the north half of Oskaloosa were severely damaged and most of the plate glass windows in the area were broken by an explosion. Three boys were killed in the explosion. The boys had been seen shooting at the A. L. Spencer gunpowder magazine half a mile north of the town center.[9]

The first bituminous coal mine in the area was opened shortly after 1853 by Robert Seevers, who drove a drift into a 4-foot coalbed in an exposed creek bank east of town.[10] Initially, coal was mined entirely for local consumption, but with the arrival of the railroads, coal from the region was shipped widely. In the 1880s, more than one million tons of was mined in the county from 38 mines. By 1887, the report of the state mine inspector listed 11 coal mines in or very close to Oskaloosa.[11] By 1895 the coal output of Mahaska County surpassed that of all other Iowa counties, and production had reached more than one million tons per year.[12] In 1911, coal mining was reported to be the primary industry in the region.[13] In 1914, the Carbon Block Coal Company of Centerville produced more than 100,000 tons of coal, ranking among the top 24 coal producers in the state.[14]

Several major coal-mining camps were located in the Oskaloosa area. Muchakinock was about 5 miles south of town, on the banks of the Muchakinock Creek. Lost Creek was a company town and post office with a population of about 500 in 1905, located about 10 miles south of town.[15] On January 24, 1902, there was a mine explosion in the Lost Creek No. 2 mine. This was one of only two major mine disasters in Iowa between 1888 and 1913. A miner setting shots to blast coal from the coal face re-used a hole left over from a previous failed shot, and the result was a coal dust explosion that detonated barrels of gunpowder stored in the mine. 20 men died on the site and 14 more were badly injured. The explosion sparked a statewide miner's strike. As a result, in April 1903, the legislature enacted a law to regulate blasting in coal mines.[16][17]

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 7.45 square miles (19.30 km²), of which 7.43 square miles (19.24 km²) is land and 0.02 square miles (0.05 km²) is water.[18]

Top Ten Companies

• Source: LocationOne Information Systems website and telephone survey conducted February 2010

Oskaloosa is also the headquarters of the music publisher C.L. Barnhouse Company.

The City of Oskaloosa has a mayor-city council-city manager form of government under a home rule charter. The mayor and city council are elected. The city council is composed of seven members who make decisions regarding rules and regulations pertaining to Oskaloosa. The mayor is elected for a two-year term and council members are elected to serve for four years. The city manager is appointed by the city council.

Oskaloosa is a sister city with Shpola, Ukraine.

In July 2015, Presidential candidate Donald Trump held a campaign event, a family picnic, at Oskaloosa's George Daily Community Auditorium. He did not give press credentials to the Des Moines Register for the event, due to its having had an editorial urging him to drop out of the race.[25]

In November 2019, Presidential Candidate Joe Biden held a campaign event at William Penn University.

Oskaloosa is the home of William Penn University, a private, liberal arts college. It was founded by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in 1873 as Penn College. In 1933, the name was changed to William Penn College, and finally to William Penn University in 2000.

William Penn University: Spencer Memorial Chapel

Oskaloosa was the home of the now-defunct Oskaloosa College.

The city's public system, Oskaloosa Community School District, operates a high school, middle school, elementary school, and an alternative school. Oskaloosa Elementary opened in January 2005, merging five smaller buildings scattered across the city. The building is the largest elementary school in Iowa.

Also in Oskaloosa is Oskaloosa Christian Grade School, which was founded in 1946. SonShine Preschool was started later on and is in the same building.

Transit services in the city are provided by Oskaloosa Rides. Free bus service is provided along one fixed-route loop in the city, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM. Paratransit services operated by 10-15 Transit are provided daily.[26]

In the city's town square is a bronze statue of Chief Mahaska, the 19th-century leader of a Native American tribe called the Ioway; he was memorialized by the name of Mahaska County. Restored in the 21st century, the statue was completed in 1907 by an Iowa-born sculptor named Sherry Edmundson Fry (1879–1966). At the time it was commissioned, Fry was living in Paris. He returned to Iowa the following summer to make preparatory drawings of Meskwaki at the nearby Settlement at Tama, Iowa, and to collect Indian artifacts and other reference materials. Returning to Paris, he began on a clay scale model, which he first showed at the Paris Salon in 1907. A year later, Fry exhibited the final full-sized sculpture, for which he won the Prix de Rome. Soon after, it was shipped to the US, and arrived in Oskaloosa by railroad in September. The formal dedication of the statue was held on May 12, 1909, and attended by a crowd of about 12,000 people.

Oskaloosa boasts two private homes designed in 1948–51 by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Typical of his Usonian homes, these are the Carroll Alsop House at 1907 A Ave E and the Jack Lamberson House at 511 North Park Avenue.

Oskaloosa hosted the Iowa State Fair in 1858 and 1859, prior to the Civil War.

In 1934, Oskaloosa became the first city in the United States to fingerprint all of its citizens, including children.

The first settlers in the area brought along their instruments and a deep love of music. Residents organized a town band in 1864. In 1880 the band was called the K. T. Band (for Knight Templars). About 1882 the city erected a double-deck bandstand in the center of the city park. The band had started playing in the city park when it was just a field. A brick walk through the park was constructed with money raised from a local talent minstrel show. In 1886 the Knee Gahh Band went to St. Louis for their national conclave and was a tremendous hit. That marked the beginning of the band's prominence in the Midwest.

Charles L. Barnhouse developed the band "atmosphere" from the time he came to Oskaloosa in 1891. He exerted a creative influence to build up a musical organization that would become the pride of the city. His band garnered statewide acclaim, becoming the official band of the Iowa State Fair for four years. In 1904 the band played at the annual National Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic in Louisville, Kentucky. En route, it played by invitation at the World's Fair in Saint Louis, Missouri. In the ensuing years the band became popular throughout Iowa and other states.

In 1907 and 1908 Oskaloosa had two bands playing concerts – the Iowa Brigade Band and LaRue's Band. The merchants on High Avenue West employed their own band to compete with the Iowa Brigade Band in the park on Saturday evenings.

In 1911 the citizens decided to beautify the city and voted to fund improvements for the city park. The citizens recommended a new bandstand be erected in the center of the park. The old double-deck frame bandstand was moved to one side to be used while the new bandstand was being built. The first concert in the new bandstand was played on June 1, 1912, and the bandstand was dedicated on July 25, 1912.

• Eddie Anderson, football head coach at University of Iowa 1939–42, 1946–49
• Alfred Balk, magazine editor
• Bill S. Ballinger, author and screenwriter
• Steve Bell, former ABC News anchor
• Max Bennett, jazz musician
• Charles Brookins, track and field athlete
• Elaine Christy, harpist
• Bernard A. Clarey, Admiral, among most decorated U.S. Navy officers; Admiral Clarey Bridge in Pearl Harbor named after him
• Chester Conklin, comedian and actor
• Marsena E. Cutts, politician
• Lisa Eagen, athlete, 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics, team handball[27]
• Dulah Marie Evans, painter, photographer, etcher
• Frank Friday Fletcher, Admiral, Medal of Honor recipient and namesake of the Fletcher-class destroyer
• Cliff Knox, Major League Baseball player
• John F. Lacey, U.S. Representative
• Tip Lamberson, flute maker
• Harry Hamilton Laughlin, eugenicist
• Lillian Miles, actress best known for her performance in the anti-marijuana film Reefer Madness
• Patrick O'Bryant, National Basketball Association player
• Arthur Russell, modern music composer
• Tyler Sash, defensive back for Iowa Hawkeyes and Super Bowl champion with the NFL's New York Giants
• Emma Steghagen, labor organizer and suffragist
• John H. Stek, translator of New International Version Bible
• Cecil W. Stoughton, Kennedy presidential photographer
• Al Swearengen, proprietor of Gem Saloon in Deadwood, South Dakota, 1877–1899 (featured in HBO series Deadwood)
• Ed Thomas, football coach[28]
• Guy Vander Linden, Iowa state representative, U.S. Marines Brigadier General
• Thomas Eugene Watson, U.S. Marines lieutenant general
• Clarence C. Wiley, ragtime music composer
• Roscoe B. Woodruff, U.S. Army general of World War II

• Oskaloosa Public Library

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Oskaloosa, Iowa.

• Official City of Oskaloosa website