W. Jasper Blackburn

William Jasper Blackburn (July 24, 1820 – November 10, 1899) was an American printer, publisher and politician who served in the United States House of Representatives from northwestern Louisiana from July 18, 1868, to March 3, 1869. A Republican during Reconstruction, he was elected to the Louisiana State Senate, serving from 1874 to 1878.

Biography Blackburn was born on July 24, 1820, in Fouche de Mau, Randolph County, Arkansas, where he was homeschooled by his mother. In 1839, he moved to Batesville, Arkansas, to be train in the printing trade. He traveled to continue learning the trade; Little Rock in 1845; Fort Smith in 1846; and Minden, Louisiana in 1849, where he established the Minden Herald; Homer, Louisiana in 1859, where he established the Homer Iliad.

In 1867, Blackburn became a member of the Louisiana State constitutional convention, and was county judge of Claiborne Parish, Louisiana for four years. Upon the readmission of the State of Louisiana, he was elected as a Republican to the Fortieth Congress. He served from July 18, 1868, to March 3, 1869. He was not eligible for re-nomination during the 1868 elections. Instead he ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor. He lost to African American Oscar Dunn, who was elected to the second position on the Henry Clay Warmoth ticket.

After a four-year stint in the Louisiana Senate, Blackburn returned in 1880 to Little Rock, Arkansas, where he published the Arkansas Republican from 1881 to 1884 and The Free South from 1885 to 1892. He died in Little Rock and is interred there in Mount Holly Cemetery.