Osage County is the largest county in Oklahoma and was created in 1907 when Oklahoma was admitted as a state. It is characterized by open and rolling prairie. Eastern Osage County has the Osage Hills, an extension of the Flint Hills of Kansas, and everyone in the gravel cycling world knows what happens there in the Flint Hills each year in May. 1

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Prior to statehood, the Osage Nation purchased 1.57 million acres of land in what was then Indian Territory. This ownership included mineral rights. By 1920 the Osage were receiving lucrative revenues from these mineral interests and were among the richest people in the country.

 

Many books have been written about the ensuing horrors and unscrupulous dealings and corruption as Osage tribal members were murdered or tricked out of their legal claims to property including, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, David Grann; The Deaths of Sybil Bolton: An American History, Dennis McAuliffe, Jr.; and Bloodland: A Family Story of Oil, Greed and Murder on the Osage Reservation, Dennis McAuliff, Jr.

 

In 2013, Meryl

Streep, Julia Roberts, Ewan

McGregor and others

starred in August: Osage

County, a movie produced

by George Clooney. The

movie was filmed on

location in a 100-year old

farmhouse in Pawhuska,

Oklahoma. The house was

originally a Sears, Roebuck

& Co. kit home.

Osage County has

miles and miles of gravel

roads offering vistas of rolling terrain and abundant wildlife. Ranching is prevalent and cattle continue to graze on open range. Osage County is still home to numerous active oil and gas wells, which will be seen in operation as you ride throughout the countryside. Enjoy this beautiful part of Oklahoma!

 

About 150 miles to the North, as the crow flies, is Emporia, Kansas, home of perhaps the best known gravel event in the U.S., Dirty Kanza.

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