William Orlando Smith

Who was William Orlando Smith?

William Orlando Smith was a U.S. Representative from the state of Pennsylvania.

William O. Smith was born in Reynoldsville, Pennsylvania. He learned the printing trade, and worked as publisher of the Reynoldsville Herald from 1876 to 1879. He worked in the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C., from 1879 to 1884. He returned to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, in 1884 and successively edited the Punxsutawney Tribune and the Punxsutawney Spirit. He member of the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives from 1889 to 1898. He worked as editor of the Bradford Daily Era in Bradford, Pennsylvania, in 1891. He purchased a half interest in the Punxsutawney Spirit in January 1892.

Smith was elected as a Republican to the Fifty-eighth and Fifty-ninth Congresses. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1906. After his time in Congress, he resumed his newspaper interests in Punxsutawney. He died in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1932. Interment in Circle Hill Cemetery in Punxsutawney.