Edward T. Riling, lawyer, was born in Leavenworth, Kan., Nov. 15, 1875, son of John and Katherine (Murphy) Riling, of Irish descent, the father born in Ohio, and the mother in Wisconsin. The parents were married at Leavenworth, Kan., where the father settled before the Civil war and where he was actively engaged as a maker of wagons for the government; yet he took part in the famous Price's raid. In 1856 he took up a homestead in Douglas county, Kansas, the farm still being owned in the family, and on this farm the father died at the age of fifty-two years. He lived with his family in Leadville, Col., for five years, going there in 1879, and then returning to Kansas. For several years he manufactured wagons in Leavenworth, and at one time at Lawrence.

Edward T. Riling attended school at Leavenworth, after his parents returned from Colorado, and when, in 1888, his parents moved to their farm in Douglas county, he was sent to St. Benedict's College, at Atchison, where he spent four years, and afterward managed the parental home farm five years, and in the fall of 1898 he entered the law department of the University of Kansas, graduating in 1900, in which year he opened a law office in Lawrence and began the active work of his profession. In that same year he was elected to the legislature from the Fourteenth district and served for two years. In 1904 he was elected county judge, but in the last year of his term the office was abolished by legislation. In 1910 he was elected county attorney for Douglas county, in which office he is now rendering creditable services. Mr. Riling has won an enviable reputation as a lawyer and a citizen. In politics he is a Republican, and is numbered among leading local leaders of his party.

In 1907 he married Miss Abbie Fisher, of Michigan, and they have one child, Edward T., Jr.