At the close of the Civil War, Barber County was still not organized, for
  only the eastern one-third of the state had been organized into counties up
  to this time. Progress of organizing counties west of this point had been
  slowed because of problems with the Comanche and Pawnee Indians, making
  surveying of these lands risky business.
     Barber County eventually came into being in 1867, when all the unorganized
  part of the state east of the range line 26 west was divided into counties.
     In 1825 the Federal government pushed the Osages as far south of the
  Kansas River as possible. Their reserve was fifty miles wide and extended
  westward from White Hair's Villiage, an Indian encampment situated on the
  Neosho River. The treaty provided that the western boundary shoud be a "line
  running from the head source of the Arkansas River southwardly through the
  Rock Saline." This description placed the western boundary near where Wichita
  is now. As a result of a survey of these Osage Trust lands in 1865, the
  surveyors arbitrarily extended the western boundary tot he one hundredth
  meridian. This action put the land that would be eventually Barber County 
  near the center of this 50 mile wide east and west strip of the Osage Trust
  Lands.
     The starting point for counties to be formed in Kansas was where the main
  channel of the Kansas river crosses the Missouri line; consequently, this
  starting point eventuallly had some influence on the location of the boundary
  lines of Barber County.
     The temporary boundaries of Barber County were established by an act of 
  the legislature in 1867. It was intended that the county bear the name of
  Thomas W. Barber, but as the result of an error in the spelling, the name
  "Barbour" was officially reorded and stood until an act of the legislature
  corrected it in 1883.
     In 1867 the Osage consented to a division of their reservation and sold
  thirty by fifty miles of their reservation to the federal government for
  $300,000. The remainder of the Osage diminshed reserve was disposed of by
  an act of Congress in 1879, and in the same year the Osage consented to
  remove to the Indian Territory of Oklahoma.
     Soon after the Osage left for Oklahoma, plans were made and Barber County
  was organized in 1873. It was at this time that the legislature enlarged
  Barber County by township 30, ranges 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15 west, which 
  were detached from Pratt County, and by townships 31-35, range 10 west, 
  which were detached from Harper County.
     The southern boundary of Barber County should have been on the thirty-
  seventh parallel, but an error of some kind placed this southern boundary 
  three miles to far north, putting this portion of Barber County into the 
  Cherokee Strip. This situation was corrected when the federal government
  acquired this land in preparation for the opening of the Cherokee Strip in
  1872, giving Barber County a total of 733,248 acres.
                  
     Source:Chosen Land - Barber County, Kansas,  pg.7  
     Submitted by: Elmer Angell, Jr., with the assistance of Larry Jochims,
     Kansas State Historical Society.