Ozark County is located in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Missouri.  as of the 2018, the estimated population was 9,017 over a total area of 755 square miles. The largest city and county seat is Gainesville.

The county was organized as Ozark County, named after the Ozark Mountains, on January 29, 1841.

The first people thought to live in what is present day Ozark County are called the Bluff-dwellers, then Osages, and then Shawnees. Their lives left few changes in the environment. Two hundred and forty-six Indian mounds, arrow manufacturing quarries, and campsites have been found in Ozark County. Occasionally an Indian Trail Tree will be spotted, where they pinned the top of a sapling to the ground pointing the way to a spring, or perhaps a jog in the trail. The trees are now huge, but still directing the way.

John Bradbury, an English traveler through Missouri in 1809, described the Osage as  “So tall and robust as almost to warrant the application of the term gigantic; few of them appear to be under six feet, and many are above it. Their shoulders and visages are broad, which tend to strengthen the idea of their being giants.”

The first settlers arrived in the 1830’s attracted by the freedom, plentiful game, crystal clear streams and springs. They came mostly from the Eastern border states, and largely Union sympathizers. The county grew with livestock farms, grain, and as a trading, banking, and judicial center. The rugged country created pockets of settlements, so that by 1960 there were more post offices than in any other Missouri county. (en.wikipedia)