[1] The county was named after Richard Montgomery, a major general during the American Revolutionary War.

For many millennia, the Great Plains of North America was inhabited by nomadic Native Americans.

In 1803, most of the land for modern day Kansas was acquired by the United States from France as part of the 828,000 square mile Louisiana Purchase for 2.83 cents per acre.

[4] When Kansas was admitted to the Union as a state in 1861, the Osage Indian reservation occupied a large tract of land near the southern border.

As early as 1866, the Osages were forced to cede tracts at the eastern and northern edges of the reservation.

This treaty conceded white settlement on land in the eastern part of what is now Montgomery County.

[citation needed] For a brief time, the Osages attempted to maintain a boundary at the Verdigris River.

From the west the Elk River joins the Verdigris at a confluence slightly northwest of the geographical center of the county.

In 1867 Frank and Fred Bunker established a primitive cattle camp on the west side of the Verdigris south of the confluence.

[6] Google Maps uses Fawn Creek Township within Montgomery County as the zero-mile point of the United States.

[17] † means a community is designated a Census-Designated Place (CDP) by the United States Census Bureau.