Nevada, founded in 1855 as the seat of Vernon County, became a financial center and shipping point in a fertile farming and coal-producing area. Colonel D. C. Hunter laid out the town and named it for Nevada City, California, while Vernon County, legally organized in 1855 after an earlier attempt in 1851, was named for state Senator Colonel Miles Vernon. Settled largely by Southerners, Nevada and Vernon County were deeply involved in the Kansas Border War from 1854 to 1859 over the extension of slavery, and John Brown carried out one raid into northern Vernon County. During the Civil War, troops from both sides and guerrilla raiders overran the area, and Federal militia burned Nevada to the ground on May 26, 1863. After the war, Nevada prospered with the arrival of the M. K. T. Railroad in 1870 and a Missouri Pacific branch in 1882. Cottey Junior College for women was founded there in 1884 by Virginia Cottey Stockard, who deeded the school to the P. E. O. Sisterhood in 1927. State Hospital No. 3 was located there in 1885, and nearby Camp Clark, a Missouri National Guard training area, dates from 1919. Nevada lies between the Great Western Plains and the Ozark Highland of Missouri in a region acquired through the 1808 and 1825 Osage Indian land cessions. About 20 miles north, near the mouth of the Marmaton River, the Great Osage had their village, with the Little Osage living nearby. Long after their removal west, the Osage returned to mourn their dead buried in Blue Mound, one of several large natural mounds to the north. Charles Du Tisné was the first white man to visit the villages in 1719 on an exploring trip for the French government. In the Spanish period, Auguste and Pierre Chouteau built Fort Carondelet in 1795 on the Osage River above the villages, and Zebulon M. Pike visited the Osage on his 1806 trip to the Southwest. Harmony Mission, an Indian school, stood on the Osage River in Bates County from 1821 to 1836. William Joel Stone, who served as Congressman from 1885 to 1891, Missouri Governor from 1893 to 1897, and U.S. Senator from 1903 to 1918, made Nevada his home, and in 1935 the state placed Frederick Hibbard's statue of Stone on the courthouse lawn.