Osborne, the county seat and largest town of Osborne county, is located north of the center of the county, on the Missouri Pacific R. R. and on the south fork of the Solomon river. It has a public waterworks, fire department, opera house, public library, 3 hotels, 3 banks, 6 churches, high school, graded schools and 2 weekly newspapers (the Osborne County Farmer and the Osborne County News). A stage runs daily to Covert. There are three wards in the city, which is supplied with express and telegraph offices, and has an international money order postoffice with four rural routes. The population in 1910 was 1,566.

Osborne was founded in May, 1871, by a party of 35 people from Pennsylvania, with W. L. Bear as president of the colony. The postoffice was established on July 1 with H. D. Markley as postmaster. The first newspaper was the Osborne Times, established in 1873 by J. J. Johnson and F. E. Jerome. The first school was taught by Miss Yates. The first birth was that of Walter Jerome in 1873. The first church organizations were formed in 1871, and houses of worship were built in the early '70s. The town was proclaimed a city of the third class by Judge A. J. Banta in May, 1873. The citizens failed to organize a legal city government, and in 1878 Judge Holt again decreed Osborne to be a city of the third class and ordered an election, which resulted as follows: Mayor, J. W. Elliott; police judge, A. Anderson; clerk, F. E. Leebrick; treasurer, A. N. Fritchey; councilmen, R. G. Hays, E. Smith, J. M. Morgan, A. Smith and Z. T. Walrond. In 1878 a bridge was built across the Solomon at this point. A bank, which was a branch of a Beloit banking house, was established soon afterward.