Colonel Oscar Eugene Learnard was born at Fairfax, Vermont, November 14, 1832. His education was in the Vermont common schools, Bakersfield Academy, and Norwich University. He also graduated from the Albany Law School. His law practice was started in Crestline, Ohio, but he decided to go to Kansas and do what he could to make it a free state. He arrived at Lawrence in the winter of 1855-56.

He commanded a “mounted regiment” of the Free State forces in the border war during 1856. In 1857, he helped locate and lay out the town of Burlington, where he built the first mill, the first business house, and a building used for school and church purposes.

He was made member of the 1857 Territorial Council and served three sessions. He was Chairman of the Convention at Osawatomie, May 18, 1859, which organized the Republican Party in Kansas. He was L. Col. Of the First Kansas Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War. In 1863, he resigned his commission, but in 1864 again offered his services against the Price Raid. He took part in all of the battles of the campaign which defeated General Price.

Colonel Learnard was superintendent of the Haskell Institute for one year. He bought the Lawrence Daily Journal in 1884, and kept it until his death. In 1882, Col. Learnard married Mary S. Eldridge, daughter of Col. Shalor W. Eldridge. They had six children. Colonel Learnard died at his home in Lawrence November 5, 1911. Mrs. Learnard died January 2, 1933 in Gilroy, California at the home of her son Tracy.

These pictures were a gift from Tracy Learnard, 1948.