People from southeastern Pennsylvania created Osborne City in May 1871. They named the settlement after Vincent B. Osborne, a Union Army veteran of the American Civil War. Osborne County also is named after him. Osborne City became the permanent county seat in November 1872. In May 1873, a district judge officially said it was a city, but the townspeople did not create a government. Five years later, a second attempt was successful, and the settlement incorporated as a city in 1878. "City" was dropped from its name by the mid-1890s.