Olivet, one of the small towns of Osage county, is a station on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe R. R., 12 miles south of Lyndon, the county seat. It has banking facilities and is a shipping point for a prosperous farming community. There are telegraph and express offices and a money order postoffice with one rural route. The population according to the census of 1910 was 200.

The town was located in 1869 by Rev. A. J. Bartels, a minister of the Swedenborgian church, who with J. R. Elder and C. P. Loricke were representing a stock company with a capital of $10,000 raised for the purpose of founding a town in Kansas. The first year saw considerable growth. William Haslam opened a store for general merchandise and drugs, H. J. Davis opened a hotel, Bartels & Munger started a sawmill and wagon and blacksmith shops were opened. The town was incorporated as a city of the third class, and a postoffice was established in 1870.