County Founding
The federal government acquired the land that was to become Taney County in 1803, as part of the Louisiana purchase. While acquisition by the U.S. government freed the area of Spanish and French claims, Native Americans inhabited the area, holding stronger territorial rights than the European explorers. The Ozarks Plateau, for instance, was a part of the Osage Indian Territory. Sometimes through treaty and sometimes through outright possession, the federal government gradually acquired most of the Louisiana Purchase, expediting westward expansion.
In March 1804, the Louisiana Purchase was divided into two territories. The Territory of Louisiana, subdivided into five districts, contained the areas to become Missouri and Arkansas. In the first treaty that the U.S. government struck with the Osage in November 1808, the government negotiated ownership, at least on paper, of "the land between the Missouri and Arkansas River lying east of a line running due south from Fort Osage to the Arkansas River" (Ingenthron 5). In actual practice, the Osage continued to use the area as hunting grounds, and other tribes in the area remained for a time unaffected by the federal government's claims.
After the War of 1812, the federal government again concerned itself with moving Native Americans living east of the Mississippi River west of that divide. Scattered and decimated, small groups made their way westward: Algonquian tribes moved into the upper White River Valley; a few Miamis settled at the mouth of Swan Creek; a small group of Weas and Piankashaus stayed on Creek. And a larger group of Shawnees received land in now eastern Taney County, while the Delaware, Cherokee, and Kickapoo also were granted temporary land grants in and near what would become Taney County (Ingenthron 9-11). By 1833, however, most of these tribes had been forced further westward into Kansas and Oklahoma.
One of the difficulties faced in acquiring these new lands was organization. While Missouri became a state in 1821, it took much longer for county boundaries to be mapped with any degree of permanence. The General Assembly established Greene County in 1833 out of the area that had been attached to Wayne County from 1818 to 1831 (until Wayne County's dissolution) and to Crawford County from 1831 to 1833. The area established as Greene County would be divided gradually into smaller units, eventually comprising eleven whole counties and sections of eight others (11).
The Greene County courts divided the county into townships, establishing the White River Township in 1833. This area would become Taney County in an 1835 proposal before the state legislature. The Taney County boundaries were drafted as follows:
All of the territory included within the following limits shall compose a new county to be called the county of Taney, in honor of Roger B. Taney, a distinguished citizen of Maryland, to wit: Beginning at the southwest corner of the county of Greene, as established by the preceding section of this act; thence south along the Barry County line, to the south boundary of the state; thence east with the state line, to the point where the range line dividing ranges 17 and 18 intersects said state line; thence northwith said range line to the south east corner of Greene County; thence west to the beginning, provided that the territory included within the above-named bounds shall continue to be attached to the county of Greene for all civil and military purposes, until the same be established and organized as a separate county by law. (13)
In 1837, the state legislature approved the creation of Taney County, though these boundaries were not yet stable. In 1839, the territory was extended, adding 72 square miles so that Taney County encompassed 1,089 square miles (with at least that much area attached for civil and military purposes). The next year, a census would reveal the entire area to contain 3,264 people, or roughly 1.5 people to every square mile (15).
New counties would continue to be forged out of this massive area, gradually whittling Taney County to a more manageable size: Ozark County was established in 1841; Stone County in 1851; and Christian County in 1859; and Douglas County in 1864. Since 1864, Taney County boundaries have remained the same, though the area itself has been radically transformed.
Today the county consists of these towns and villages: Bradleyville, Branson, Brown Branch, Forsyth, Hollister, Kirbyville, Melva, Mincy, Mildred, Point Lookout, Powersite, Protem, Ridgedale, Swan, and Taneyville.
Works Cited
Image of county map created by Gwen Simmons.
Image of cabin from http://www.arttoday.com, member page, July 1999.
Ingenthron, Elmo. The Land of Taney: A History of an Ozark Commonwealth. Ozark Regional History Series, Book II. Point Lookout, MO: School of the Ozarks Press, 1974.
