Coe Isaac CRAWFORD, Congress, SD (1858-1944)

CRAWFORD, Coe Isaac, a Senator from South Dakota; born near Volney, Allamakee County, Iowa, January 14, 1858; attended the common schools and was instructed by a private tutor; graduated from the law department of the University of Iowa at Iowa City in 1882; admitted to the bar and commenced practice at Independence, Iowa; moved to Pierre, Territory of Dakota, in 1883 and continued the practice of law; prosecuting attorney of Hughes County in 1887 and 1888; member, Territorial council 1889; upon the admission of South Dakota as a State was elected as a member of the first State senate; attorney general of South Dakota 1892-1896; unsuccessful Republican candidate in 1896 for Representative at Large to the Fifty-fifth Congress; attorney for the Chicago & North Western Railway Co. for the area around South Dakota 1897-1903, when he resigned; moved to Huron in 1897; Governor of South Dakota 1907-1908; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1909, to March 3, 1915; unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1914; chairman, Committee on Expenditures in the Interior Department (Sixty-first Congress), Committee on Claims (Sixty-second Congress); resumed the practice of law in Huron, S.Dak., until 1934, when he retired from active business and political life; died in Yankton, S.Dak., April 25, 1944; interment in Municipal Cemetery, Iowa City, Iowa.

Bibliography

Armin, Calvin P. “Coe I. Crawford and the Progressive Movement in South Dakota.” South Dakota Department of History Report and Historical Collections 32 (1964): 26-321; Meyer, Edward L. “Coe I. Crawford and the Persuasion of Progressive Movement in South Dakota.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1975.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present