Cyrus Austin Leland, of El Dorado, a successful lawyer and one of Butler county's most prominent men of affairs, was born at Ottawa, La Salle county, Illinois, August 11, 1843.

Mr. Leland was educated in the public schools of Ottawa, Ill., at Williston Seminary, East Hampton, Mass., and at Yale University, and graduated at the last named institution in the class of 1865, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He was prepared for law in his father's office, and was admitted to the bar at Ottawa, Ill., in 1867. From 1867 to 1877, he practiced law in Ottawa. In 1877 he came to El Dorado, Kansas, with his brother, Lorenzo Leland, Jr., and together established themselves in practice under the firm style of Leland & Leland. Lorenzo returned to Ottawa in 1879, and from that time until 1888, our subject practiced alone. In the latter year he was elected on the Democratic ticket to be District Judge of the Thirteenth judicial district and served in that capacity from 1888 to 1891, inclusive. He had previously served as city attorney and during Governor Glick's administration he was appointed a regent of the Kansas State Agricultural College. In 1892 he formed a partnership with Hon. C. L. Harris under the firm title, Leland & Harris. That partnership existed nearly eighteen years, or until dissolved in December, 1909. In January, 1910, he formed a partnership with K. M. Geddes under the firm name of Leland & Geddes, and later R. B. Ralston became the junior member of the firm, which was known as Leland, Geddes & Ralston. This firm was dissolved on April 1, 1916, since which time Mr. Leland has been practicing alone.

Judge Leland is a charter member of the Kansas State Bar Association is a director of and attorney for the Farmers and Merchants National Bank at El Dorado.

Mr. Leland was married in December, 1870, to Nellie A. Thompson, his step-sister. To Mr. and Mrs. Leland have been born five children, of whom three survive. Two daughters, Flora and Cecil, are well-known in art circles and for a time maintained a water color studio in Kansas City, Mo. Cecil Leland, now the wife of Benjamin F. McKinnon, of Washington, D. C., was graduated in the literary department of Kansas University, and her sister concluded a five-year course at the Art Institute in Chicago, and was a member of the Chase Class at Florence, Italy. Cyrus A. Leland, Jr., graduated from the electrical engineering department of the University of Kansas with the class of 1910, and is now superintendent of the electrical department of the Atchison Railway, Light and Power Company, Atchison, Kans.

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