Oskaloosa, KS

Oskaloosa is Jefferson County's seat, a northeast Kansas town at the meeting of U.S. 59 and K-92 about 15 miles north of Lawrence. It was founded in 1856 and took its name from Oskaloosa, Iowa. The county seat did not land there immediately: Ozawkie held the first designation in 1855, then elections moved the seat to Oskaloosa in 1858 and confirmed it again in 1864. That courthouse role still gives the town its square-centered identity, while Oskaloosa USD 341 keeps the community organized around its own schools. The feel is prairie crossroads with a county-government backbone, not a suburb trying to be Lawrence.