Colonel Lucien Beckner, 1873-1963.

Beckner, the curator of the Louisville Museum of Natural History and Science for twenty-six years, was born in Winchester, Kentucky in 1873. He attended the Louisville Military Academy (later known as Kentucky Military Academy), Centre College, the University of Kentucky, Transylvania College, and the University of Pennsylvania, but did not earn a degree. At the age of twenty-one, Beckner married Marie Davis Warren of Danville. The couple had two daughters, Elizabeth and Marie.

Beckner practiced law in Winchester with his father, Judge William Beckner, and was editor and publisher of several newspapers in Clark County. An assistant on the Kentucky Geological Survey, he was also a consulting geologist, helping with subsurface explorations for the Louisville Gas and Electric Company. Another activity of Beckner's was his organization of the Burley Tobacco Grower's Cooperative Association.

Beckner's engineering skills enabled him to work on establishing the Lexington and Eastern branch of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, and helping to build a railroad in Ecuador. He also helped build the Ecuador building at the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, New York (1901), for which the government of Ecuador gave him a military commission. Beckner received two other commissions, one as a colonel to recruit for the old Kentucky Militia, and another as honorary commission from the Tennessee Governor, Austin Peay. During the flu outbreak of 1917, Beckner was recruited to travel through Eastern Kentucky dispensing medicine, although he did not have any formal medical training.

In 1933, Colonel Beckner became the curator of the Louisville Museum of Natural History and Science, which was then part of the Louisville Free Public Library. During the twenty-six years Beckner held that position, he coped with the disastrous effects of the 1937 flood, the move from the library to the old Monsarrat school building, and constant financial difficulties. He was also active in the Kentucky Historical Society, the Filson Club, the Kentucky Academy of Science, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Besides his work with the museum, Beckner was also involved with the Works Projects Administration State-Wide Museum Project. He wrote poetry, articles, and monographs on Kentucky history and geology, including THE MOUNDBUILDERS and THE GLACIAL AGE.

From the description of Papers, 1900-1963. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 191916301