In February 1877, eight Ponca chiefs, including Standing Bear, accompanied Inspector Edward C. Kemble to the Osage Reservation to select a site.

Because of his recent work in oil in Kansas, Henry Foster, a petroleum developer, approached the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) to request exclusive privileges to explore the Osage Reservation in Oklahoma for oil and natural gas.

In 1875 the land they purchased was designated the Osage Reservation and, because the tribe owned the land directly, they retained more control over their affairs than did tribes who only had rights to land held "in trust" by the United States government.

Also known as Osage City, it lies within the Osage Reservation on the shore of Lake Keystone.

These reservations, along with all but the Osage Reservation in northeastern Oklahoma, were dismantled by the allotment of tribal lands to individual members, and the opening of the "excess" lands to settlement, in a series of land openings.

The Osage Reservation was part of Oklahoma Territory under the Oklahoma Organic Act of 1890 and was made a semiautonomous district by the Enabling Act of 1906.

Licensed as an Indian trader on the Osage Reservation in 1890 and engaged in that occupation until 1901.

His book about his investigation, Bloodland: A Family Story of Oil, Greed and Murder on the Osage Reservation (1994), presents an account of the corruption and murders during this period.

The town of Fairfax began in 1903, when the Santa Fe Railroad built a line through the Osage Reservation from Kaw City, Oklahoma to Ralston, Oklahoma, and bypassed the existing Osage village of Gray Horse.

In early 1877, ten Ponca leaders left for the Osage Reservation in Indian Territory to select a site for the new Ponca Reservation.