Edgar Rankin Barnes

EDGAR RANKIN BARNES is a successful lawyer and county attorney of Pratt County, and has enjoyed a growing practice and prestige in his profession since admitted to the bar.

Mr. Barnes was born in Linn County, Kansas, September 6, 1884, and is connected with several pioneer families in that section of the state, He is a son of William Lincoln and Mary (Rankin) Barnes. His grandfather, William Phineas Barnes, was born in New York State in 1837, went west to Illinois, and served four years with an Illinois Regiment of Infantry in the Civil war. In 1870 he established a home in Linn County, Kansas, took up a qaurter[sic] section claim, later moving to Blue Mound in that county, and in 1883 founded the Blue Mound Sun, which is still in existence and the only paper published in that town. He also represented Linn County in the Legislature, and was a sterling republican in politics. He died at Blue Mound in 1904.

The maternal grandfather of Edgar R. Barnes was Major Samuel E. Rankin who was born in Iowa in 1829. The Rankins came from Scotland and were colonial settlers in Pennsylvania. Major Rankin was a lawyer by profession and at one time served as state treasurer of Iowa, his home being at Des Moines. He was with an Iowa regiment of infantry all through the war, was in the battle of Shiloh, and the Siege of Vicksburg and was assigned the duty of putting the City of Memphis under martial law. In 1872 he came to Kansas and was also a pioneer homesteader in Linn County. For a number of years he was a sheep raiser and general stockman on a large scale. Later he retired to Greeley, Kansas, and edited a paper there. He died at Greeley in 1881.

William Lincoln Barnes, father of the Pratt attorney, was born near Peoria, Illinois, in 1862, and was brought to Kansas at the age of eight years. As a boy he helped his father develop the homestead claim and after his marriage he farmed for himself in Linn County. He now owns a farm of eighty acres and lives near Blue Mound. He is a republican. He married in this state Mary Rankin, who was born at Des Moines, Iowa, in 1860 and died in Linn County July 11, 1916. Edgar R. is the oldest of their children. Bertha, who has membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution, is the wife of Frederick McCarty, a teacher at Parker, Kansas; Robert L. Barnes was with the United States Expeditionary Forces in France; William P. is a druggist and a member of the Medical Corps in the army at Camp Baker, California; Samuel E., an architect, whose home is at Manhattan, Kansas, is also a soldier in France; Philip was the third son of this family to go overseas into active service; Hugh D., the youngest, is in the engineering corps of the army.

Edgar Rankin Barnes attended the rural schools of Linn County, and graduated from the Blue Mound High School in 1904. He received his professional training in the University of Kansas at Lawrence, and was graduated LL. B. in 1905. In the same year he located at Pratt, and has since conducted a general civil and criminal practice, his offices being in the Repp Building on Main Street.

Mr. Barnes was elected county attorney in 1914 and was re-elected in 1916 and 1918. He is a republican, a member of the First Methodist Episcopal Church and is affiliated with Kilwinning Lodge No. 265, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, Pratt Chapter, Royal Arch Masons, and Pratt Commandery, Knight Templars. Mr. Barnes built an attractive home at Pratt in 1916.

In 1913, at Pratt, Mr. Barnes married Miss Hazel Marie Smith, daughter of J. L. and Flora (Cassel) Smith, who reside at Wichita, where her father is in the real estate business. Mr. and Mrs. Barnes have one son, Richard Rankin, born September 26, 1917.

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