Agency, Missouri, Named for the Sac and Fox

The small Buchanan County village of Agency takes its name directly from its past: this was formerly the site of a federal Indian agency for the Sac and Fox people. The United States government established agencies like this one near tribal territories to manage relations, distribute annuity payments, and administer removal treaties in the mid-eighteen hundreds.

The town was laid out in eighteen sixty-five and a post office called Agency has been in operation since eighteen seventy-two. It sits on the southern edge of the Saint Joseph metropolitan area and today has fewer than seven hundred residents. The name is one of dozens along the Missouri River corridor that quietly record where Native nations lived and were administered before removal, preserved in a place name long after the agency itself closed.