Iberia is a rare name and doesn't appear often in written history. The name first appeared in the Celtic history of the old world. The only other Iberia found in the United States is the New Iberia, Louisiana. The present site of Iberia was once the home of Indians. The first person recorded living on the present site was George tall Bear; and Indian who stayed on even after the white man came to the land of the Osage tribe. An 1840 document contained the first use of Iberia as a name when thirty-two residents of the county living south of the Osage River petitioned the county court for a road that would lead from Iberia's post office northward to the Davis Ferry on the Osage and on northward toward Jefferson City.
In 1850, Iberia's post office was located about one mile southwest of the present site on Rabbit head Creek. It was later called Oakhurst and was on the old trail called The Old Herald Water Mill Road leading to the wet glaze in Camden (then Kinderhook) County. There was a trading post operated by Wilson Lennox near Rabbit head Creek. The Lennox Trading Post was destroyed during the Civil War, and never rebuilt. One of the original buildings was still standing on the farm owned by Herman Golden in the 1950's!
The original town of Iberia was laid out into a plat in 1859. Henry M. Dickerson owned all the land in the original site and he had the town drawn up into two streets...St. Louis Street which was 60 feet wide running North and South, and Main Street running East and West 70 feet.
Iberia residents were divided in their loyalties during the Civil War. During the early 1860's residents erected a fort as protection against invading raiders which was also used as a command post for the militia organized under the leadership of a Captain William Long. The fort stood on the site of the old Farnham Store.
Captain Long was slain by "bushwhackers." He ventured away from the fort one night and rode to the home of his parents who lived a few miles southwest of Iberia. In the middle of the night, these raiders rode to the Long farm and demanded he come out. He refuse to leave while he helped his mother and father and an old slave escape from the home.. He stayed on and fought a gun battle with the raiders. They finally set fire to the house and when the flames drove him outside, he was immediately fired upon and his body was riddled with bullets.
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