Preceded by John T. Morgan Succeeded by B. B. Comer Name John Bankhead | Role U.S. senator | |
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Full Name John Hollis Bankhead Died March 1, 1920, Washington, D.C., United States Spouse Tallulah James Brockman (m. 1866) Children William B. Bankhead, John H. Bankhead II, Marie Bankhead Owen Similar People William B Bankhead, Marie Bankhead Owen, Tallulah Bankhead | ||
Bankhead Tunnel drive through in Mobile Alabama
John Hollis Bankhead (September 13, 1842 – March 1, 1920) was a Democratic U.S. Senator from the state of Alabama between 1907 and 1920.
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Biography
Bankhead was born on September 13, 1842, at Moscow, Marion County, Alabama (near present-day Sulligent, Alabama). His great-grandfather, James Bankhead (1738–1799) was born in Ulster and settled in South Carolina.
He married Tallulah James Brockman. She was of Revolutionary ancestry, her father's great-grandfather, Benjamin Kilgore, having been a captain of a South Carolina company in the War of the Revolution. She was the daughter of James H. Brockman, a native of Greenville District, South Carolina. Her education was received in the fashionable schools of Tuskeegee and Montgomery, Alabama. Their two elder sons, John Hollis and William Brockman, were practicing lawyers. The youngest, Henry McAuley, was a student in the University of Alabama. The elder daughter, Louise, was the wife of Ex-Representative W. H. Perry, of Greenville, South Carolina, and the younger, Maria, was the wife of Captain William M. Owen, a lawyer by profession.
At age 65, John H. Bankhead was appointed, then elected, to serve out the remainder of the U.S. Senate term left by the death of John Tyler Morgan and later re-elected twice. He served from June 18, 1907, until his death on March 1, 1920. B. B. Comer, former governor of Alabama, was appointed to serve the rest of his term, until November 2, 1920, when J. Thomas Heflin was elected to serve out the term.
Bankhead was a member of the Inland Waterways Commission in 1907, and was instrumental in enacting the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916, which became the first federal highway funding legislation.
United States Senator John H. Bankhead II and Speaker of the House William Brockman Bankhead were his sons, and actress Tallulah Bankhead was his granddaughter. The cross-country Bankhead Highway was named after him, as is Bankhead Lake on the Black Warrior River near Birmingham. Also the Bankhead Tunnel on US 98 in Mobile, AL is named after him.