Melvern, one of the incorporated towns of Osage county, is located in Melvern township on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe R. R. and the Marais des Cygnes river, 10 miles south of Lyndon, the county seat. It has ample banking facilities, a weekly newspaper (the Review), good schools and churches, telegraph and express offices, and a money order postoffice with three rural routes. The population in 1910 was 505.

The town was laid out in 1870 by a town company consisting of S. B. Enderton, Charles Cochran, J. P. Ball, L. E. Warner, J. W. Beck, J. F. Want, J. M. Woods and Alexander Blake, and was named for Malvern Hills, Scotland. The prospects of a railroad made the immediate growth of the town very rapid. This was followed by a depression when the road failed to materialize within a reasonable time. In 1881 a terrific cyclone swept down the north side of the Marais des Cygnes river. It was a half mile in width and leveled everything in its path. Two men were killed and a great deal of property was destroyed. The first school was taught in 1870 by Miss Anna Want; the first birth occurred the same year and was that of Thomas M. Beck, son of Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Beck. The first marriage was between O. B. Hastings and Cecelia Wallace. The first death was that of Mary A. Huffman. The first store was opened about the time the town was founded, by Cochran & Warner, and the postoffice was established soon afterward with J. W. Beck postmaster. A flour mill was built the next year on the river by Asher Smith.