John W. Harreld

Harreld was born in Butler County, Kentucky near Morgantown to Martha Helm and Thomas Nelson Harreld.[2] He attended public schools, the normal school at Lebanon, Ohio, and Bryant & Stratton Business College of Louisville, Kentucky, where he taught while studying law.[3] Admitted to the bar in 1889, he begin his practice in Morgantown.[3] He was prosecuting attorney of Butler County from 1892 to 1896.[3] After marrying Laura Ward on October 20, 1889, and having a son, Ward,[2] he moved to Ardmore, Oklahoma in 1906.[3] He was a referee in bankruptcy from 1908 to 1915, when he resigned to become an executive with an oil corporation.[3] He moved to Oklahoma City in 1917 and engaged in the production of oil and continued the practice of law.[3] After his first wife's death, he married his wife's sister, Thurlow Ward, in 1931.[2]

Harreld was elected, on November 8, 1919, as a Republican to the Sixty-sixth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Joseph B. Thompson[2] and served from November 8, 1919, to March 4, 1921. He was not a candidate for renomination, having become a candidate for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senator; he was elected to the Senate in 1920 and served from March 4, 1921, to March 4, 1927; he was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1926.[3] He served as Senate chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs.[3] He was an unsuccessful candidate for election in 1940 to the Seventy-seventh Congress and returned to Oklahoma City, where he continued the practice of law and his interest in the oil business.[3]

He died in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1950, and was interred in Fairlawn Cemetery.[2]

• Media related to John W. Harreld at Wikimedia Commons
• Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture - Harreld, John Archived 2010-07-17 at the Wayback Machine
• John W. Harreld Collection at the Carl Albert Center