News Release 524

OSAGE INDIAN EXHIBIT FEATURED AT
VAN METER STATE PARK THROUGH FEBRUARY

Volume 34-524

Contact: Sue Holst

(For immediate release)

573-751-6510

JEFFERSON CITY, MO, NOV. 29, 2006 -- An exhibit titled, "2229 -- An Exhibition of the Original Osage Allottees," will be on display through February 2007 in Missouri's American Indian Cultural Center at Van Meter State Park near Miami. The temporary exhibit is provided by the Osage Tribal Museum in Pawhuska, Okla. and is sponsored by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

The Osage once lived in Missouri but were moved to Kansas and then to a reservation in Oklahoma. To resolve a land ownership issue, the federal government allotted, or assigned, private ownership of tribally owned reservation land to individual Osage tribe members. This was the result of the Osage Allotment Act passed by the U.S. Congress in 1906. In the exhibit are some of 1,035 allottees photographs from the Osage Tribal Museum's collection. The exhibit presents the allottees as children, soldiers, elegant ladies and families on vacation and at work.

Missouri's American Indian Cultural Center at Van Meter State Park is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday through Saturday and from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday.

Van Meter State Park is located 12 miles northwest of Marshall on Highway 122 in Saline County. The cultural center is the first building on the right as visitors enter the park. For more information, contact the park directly at 660-886-7537 or the Department of Natural Resources toll free at 800-334-6946 (voice) or 800-379-2419 (Telecommunications Device for the Deaf). For more information on Missouri state parks and historic sites, visit the Web at www.mostateparks.com.

For news releases on the Web, visit www.dnr.mo.gov/newsrel. For a complete listing of the department's upcoming meetings, hearings and events, visit the department's online calendar at www.dnr.mo.gov/calendar/parkssearch.do.

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