Osage County

On a warm spring morning in Osage County the senses may be seized by evidence of waking life. The prairie grasses throw off a pungent scent. They may be wet with dew, enough to soak a horse to his belly.

Author R. H. Lloyd was born in Osage County, Oklahoma, but spent much of his life after the age of ten in England. Returning to Oklahoma later in life prompted him to reflect on the place of his birth and its history.

Osage County is a history of the Osage tribe and the Europeans and Americans who settled this territory, covering the period from the first contacts between Native Americans and Europeans to Lloyd's own lifetime. A mixture of history and personal and family memoir, it is also a meditation on the life and culture of Native Americans in the United States. Lloyd provides an account of the impact of progress, including the discovery of oil, on the Osage people.

Lloyd's investigation into the history of his birthplace resulted in Osage County, a study in U.S. cultural history and particularly the interactions of Native and European Americans from the 1600s to the 1930s.