Lyndon, the judicial seat of Osage county, is located in the central part of the county on Salt creek, and is a station on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe and the Missouri Pacific railroads. It has 2 banks, 2 newspapers (the People's Herald and the Osage County Democrat), an opera house, flour mill, good public schools and churches. The chief shipments from this point are live stock, grain and produce. There are telegraph and express offices, and an international money order postoffice with four rural routes. The population in 1910 was 763.

The town was founded in 1869, immediately after the Sac and Fox Indian tribes gave up their possessions and the district was opened for settlement. M. M. Snow started a store, and when the postoffice was established in the fall of 1869 he was made postmaster. The next year a town company was formed, with Judge Lawrence D. Baily as president. The new town started off with a boom, but a depression followed when it experienced so much trouble in securing the county seat. Before the first year was out there were 20 business houses and over 500 population. The county seat election was held in October and Lyndon declared the victor. A long series of quarrels and legal battles followed until the people lost faith in Lyndon's prospects and withdrew their interests. Although the records were moved in 1875 it was not until 1878 that the matter was finally settled, and by this time other towns had such a start that Lyndon never regained its prestige. It was incorporated as a city of the third class in 1871, when the following officers were elected: Mayor, S. C. Gilliland; councilmen, W. H. Jenness, John S. Edie, William Haas, M. M. Snow and J. W. Hammond.

The first school was taught in 1870 by J. W. Watkins. The first sermon was preached the same year by a Baptist minister named Barker. The first birth occurred during that summer and the child was named Lyndon Smith. On Jan. 3, 1871, the first marriage took place, the contracting parties being L. D. Gardiner and Sarah E. Thomas.