John Hollis BANKHEAD, Congress, AL (1842-1920)

BANKHEAD, John Hollis, (father of John Hollis Bankhead II and William Brockman Bankhead, and grandfather of Walter Will Bankhead), a Representative and a Senator from Alabama; born in Moscow, Marion (now Lamar) County, Ala., September 13, 1842; attended the common schools; planter; served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War as captain in the Alabama Infantry; member, State house of representatives 1865-1867 and again in 1880 and 1881; member, State senate 1876-1877; warden of the State penitentiary at Wetumpka 1881-1885; moved to Fayette, Ala., in 1885 and resumed planting; in 1912 moved to Jasper, Ala.; elected as a Democrat to the Fiftieth and to the nine succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1887-March 3, 1907); chairman, Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds (Fifty-second and Fifty-third Congresses); unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1906; appointed a member of the Inland Waterways Commission in 1907; appointed and subsequently elected to the United States Senate in 1907 to fill the vacancy caused by the death of John T. Morgan; reelected in 1912 and 1918 and served from June 18, 1907, until his death in Washington, D.C., March 1, 1920; chairman, Committee on Standards, Weights, and Measures (Sixty-second Congress), Committee on Post Office and Post Roads (Sixty-third through Sixty-fifth Congresses), Committee on Expenditures in the Department of Interior (Sixty-sixth Congress); interment in Oak Hill Cemetery, Jasper, Ala.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; U.S. Congress. Memorial Services for John Hollis Bankhead. 66th Cong., 3rd sess., 1920-1921. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1921.

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