Daniel Webster Turner, named after the famed antebellum senator and orator, was born on a farm near Corning, Iowa. As a boy, he did farm chores and clerked at the general store owned by his father, a civil war veteran. Graduating from the Corning Academy in 1898, he enlisted in the Army and served in the Philippines during the Spanish–American War. He boxed in the division championship fights and won, but suffered a broken nose that became a permanent facial feature. Returning from the war, he joined the National Guard and rose to the rank of major. In 1903, at age 26, he was elected to the Iowa Senate. His political activism and boxer’s nose led the press to dub him, “Fighting Dan Turner.”