Henry Asp

Henry E. Asp (1856–1923) was an attorney and politician who was instrumental in the founding of the University of Oklahoma.

Early life Asp was born in New Boston, Illinois, on January 1, 1856. His Swedish-born parents, John Henry and Christina App, died while he was still young, so Henry was raised by a guardian, George L. Coe, who took him to Winfield, Kansas, where he grew up and learned the trades of making bricks and wooden pails. Disliking these as career choices, he studied law under the direction of the Webb & Torrance law firm, and was admitted to the Kansas bar in 1877. While living in Winfield, he married Nellie Mae Powers, and they had one son, Alfred Alonzo.

Move to Oklahoma Territory In July 1890, the Asps moved to Guthrie, the capital of the newly created Oklahoma Territory, where he became a lobbyist and solicitor for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. In 1892, Asp and two other Guthrie lawyers, John Wilford Shartel and James R. Cottingham, became partners in a law firm, handling some of the many land disputes arising after the Land Run of 1889. After most of the land cases were settled in the middle 1890s, Asp spent most of his time representing people who had moved to the Territory because it had more lenient divorce laws than the surrounding states.