Oskaloosa, Kansas

Episode 95 / 5 December 2018 / 148 min / full

Yes, No, I Don't Know...

"This week, in Oscaloosa, Kansas ... it's in Jefferson County." about 0:07:31

The case: Murder of Camille Arfman (November 5, 1999). Read the case file.

The figures, as told in 2018

Population

1,086

Median age

38.8

Median household income

$51,000

Median home value

$109,000

Two-bedroom rent

$840 a month

Religious

39.8%

Property crime

▼ about 20% under the average

Violent crime

▼ just below average

History, in brief

• Settled by Dr James Noble in February 1855. about 0:08:40
• More settlers came from Iowa the same year. about 0:08:46
• A Baptist minister began holding services in people's houses in the 1850s, before a church was built. about 0:09:07
• Officially founded as Oskaloosa in 1856, named after Oskaloosa, Iowa. about 0:09:28
• The name is said to mean 'black rain', not 'last of the beautiful'. about 0:10:11
• Forty acres were laid out in the same pattern as Oskaloosa, Iowa. about 0:10:34
• Joseph Fitzsimmons opened the first store. about 0:11:18
• A saw mill was built. about 0:11:21
• The first post office was established in 1856. about 0:11:23
• Two skirmishes of the Kansas-Missouri Border War took place near Oskaloosa in September 1856, including the Battle of Slough Creek and, two days later, the Battle of Hickory Point. about 0:11:36
• A school was built in the spring of 1857. about 0:12:02
• Joseph Fitzsimmons's wife became the town's teacher. about 0:12:38
• A drought in 1860 caused crop failure. about 0:13:30
• By the end of 1860 the population was about 400. about 0:14:14
• Samuel Popard built a 350-pound sailing wagon with a nine-by-eleven-foot sail that could reach 15 miles an hour. about 0:15:14
• Popard and companions set off for Pikes Peak with 400 pounds of provisions; within 100 miles of Denver a whirlwind destroyed the vehicle and injured all aboard after four weeks on the road. about 0:16:05
• Local men formed the Lazy Club; members seen with any implement of labour were expelled, and the champion received a barlow knife. about 0:17:33
• In 1888 Mary D. Lohman was elected mayor with an all-women city council, the first city in the state to do so. about 0:18:09
• The town had a high school and churches of many denominations. about 0:18:35
• Local farmers produced grain; the town had a canning factory, an electric light plant and a bridle bit factory. about 0:18:46
• The population in 1910 was 851. about 0:18:50
• Parker Pharmacy, a 1950s pharmacy with an old-fashioned soda fountain, still operates. about 0:18:50
• Dummy Taylor, a deaf major league baseball pitcher, came from the town around 1910. about 0:19:37
• James Reynolds, an actor on Days of Our Lives for over 30 years, is the town's best-known celebrity. about 0:20:52

The reviews read out

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