Oscar Turner was born at Woodlands, his father's farm near
Woodville, Kentucky, on October 19, 1867. He was the son of Caroline (Gardner) Turner and
Oscar Turner, who served in Congress from 1879 to 1885. Turner's great-grandfather was
Winthrop Sargent, who served as
governor of
Mississippi Territory. Having graduated at nineteen, Turner did not meet the minimum age required to practice law (twenty-one), so he furthered his education with extensive travel before attaining
admission to the bar in 1891 and beginning to practice in Louisville. In addition to practicing law, Turner was active in several business ventures, to include mines in Mexico, a
Dallas,
Texas, book publishing firm, and real estate including farms and timberland. A
Democrat, in 1898, Turner was elected to the
United States House of Representatives. He served in the
Fifty-sixth Congress (March 4, 1899, to March 3, 1901). He declined to run for a second term in 1900 and resumed the practice of law in 1901. In July 1902, Turner became ill while on board a train near Dallas, where he was traveling for business. Turner was hospitalized at
St. Paul Sanitarium in Dallas, but refused heart surgery and asked to be taken home. He traveled to Louisville by train but did not recover. Turner died at "Melrose", his home in the
Crescent Hill section of Louisville, on July 17, 1902. He was interred at
Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville. ==Family==