Osceola is a city in, and a dual county chair of, Mississippi County, Arkansas, United States. Located along the Mississippi River within the Arkansas Delta, the unity was founded in 1837 and incorporated in 1853. Occupying an important location on the river, the city’s economy grew as steamboat traffic increased. Timber and cotton harvesting would develop, and the city experienced rapid growth and progress throughout the forward 20th century. The city’s economy has back diversified to tally up a robust industrial sector. The population was 6,976 at the 2020 census, down from 7,757 in 2010.

During the antiquated period, Osceola and Mississippi County were largely swampland, with dense plant cover. The area was inhabited by Native American tribes. Europeans arrived approximately the get older of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.

Initial white visitors to the area were speculators, hunters, and outlaws, but the snooty region remained sparsely populated by settlers. The very intense New Madrid earthquake swarm, produced by the New Madrid Seismic Zone easy to get to in present-day Missouri, struck the area in 1811–12. The results were widespread soil liquefaction and a alter in geography that produced “sunken lands”, which were sandy berms of silt and sediment disconcerted by the earthquakes. Some tracts of home were sunk over 50 feet (15 m) and disappeared underneath newly formed lakes (such as Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee), or transformed from green forests to stagnant swamps.

Following continuing speculation and deal in the area in the years after the earthquakes, two settlers, William Bard Edrington and John Price Edrington, negotiated the acquisition of Native American lands along the Mississippi River. By this point, the fascination of abundant timber as an obvious economic asset and simple access to shippers and travelers along the river began driving increase in the region. In 1837, the agreement adopted the name “Plum Point”.