Oskaloosa is a city in, and the county seat of, Mahaska County, Iowa. The population was 11,558 in the 2020 U.S. census. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Oskaloosa was a national center of bituminous coal mining. Today, Oskaloosa is home to William Penn University, a private university, and Lake Keomah State Park which is located four miles east of the city.
History
thumb|left|East side of public square, 1864
thumb|left|alt=Oskaloosa coal mine.|The Sam Smith coal mine in 1895, located in what is now the 1300 block of High Avenue West.
thumb|left|alt=Theodore Roosevelt campaigns in Oskaloosa.|[[Theodore Roosevelt campaigns in the Oskaloosa city square in the fall of 1912.]]
Oskaloosa derives its name from Ouscaloosa who, according to town lore, was a Creek princess who married Seminole chief Osceola. A local tradition was that her name meant "last of the beautiful". (This interpretation of "last of the beautiful" is not correct. "" in the Mvskoke-Creek language means "black rain", from the Mvskoke words "" (rain) and "" (black). "loosa" is an English corruption of the Mvskoke word "". For example, see the Wikipedia entry for Tuskaloosa, eponym of the town of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. In addition the Mvskoke word "" means "Black Water"). The first European-American settlers arrived in 1835, led by Nathan Boone, youngest son of frontiersman Daniel Boone. Acting on instructions from Stephen W. Kearny, he selected this as the first site of Fort Des Moines, located on a high ridge between the Skunk and Des Moines rivers. The ridge was originally called the Narrows.
The town was formally platted in 1844 when William Canfield moved his trading post from the Des Moines River to Oskaloosa. The town was designated by the legislature as the county seat in the same year. The Central Iowa Railway followed, which became the Iowa Central Railway in 1888 and was absorbed by the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway in 1901. In 1883, the Burlington and Western Railway reached Oskaloosa; this was a narrow gauge line that was widened to Standard Gauge in 1902 and then merged with the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad.
On January 6, 1882, most of the buildings in the north half of Oskaloosa were severely damaged and most of the plate glass windows in the area were broken by an explosion. Three boys were killed in the explosion. The boys had been seen shooting at the A. L. Spencer gunpowder magazine half a mile north of the town center.
The first bituminous coal mine in the area was opened shortly after 1853 by Robert Seevers, who drove a drift into a four-foot coalbed in an exposed creek bank east of town. Initially, coal was mined entirely for local consumption, but with the arrival of the railroads, coal from the region was shipped widely. In the 1880s, more than one million tons of coal was mined in the county from 38 mines. By 1887, the report of the state mine inspector listed 11 coal mines in or very close to Oskaloosa. By 1895, the coal output of Mahaska County surpassed that of all other Iowa counties, and production had reached more than one million tons per year. In 1911, coal mining was reported to be the primary industry in the region. In 1914, the Carbon Block Coal Company of Centerville produced more than 100,000 tons of coal, ranking among the top 24 coal producers in the state.
Several major coal-mining camps were located in the Oskaloosa area. Muchakinock was approximately five miles south of town, on the banks of the Muchakinock Creek. Lost Creek was a company town and post office with a population of about 500 in 1905, located about 10 miles south of town. On January 24, 1902, there was a mine explosion in the Lost Creek No. 2 mine. This was one of only two major mine disasters in Iowa between 1888 and 1913. A miner setting shots to blast coal from the coal face re-used a hole left over from a previous failed shot, and the result was a coal dust explosion that detonated barrels of gunpowder stored in the mine. Twenty men died on the site and 14 more were badly injured. The explosion sparked a statewide miner's strike. As a result, in April 1903, the legislature enacted a law to regulate blasting in coal mines.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and is water.
Climate
According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Oskaloosa has a hot-summer humid continental climate, abbreviated "Dfa" on climate maps.