Louis FitzHenry

Who was Louis FitzHenry?

Louis Fitzhenry was briefly a U.S. Representative from Illinois, and later a long-serving United States federal judge.

Born in Bloomington, McLean County, Illinois, Fitzhenry attended the public and high schools of Bloomington and, engaged in journalism before receiving an LL.B. from Illinois Wesleyan University Law School in 1897. He was admitted to the bar in 1897 and commenced private practice in Bloomington from 1897 to 1907, and was city attorney of Bloomington from 1907 to 1911.

Fitzhenry was an unsuccessful candidate for election in 1910 to the Sixty-second Congress, but was elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-third Congress. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1914 to the Sixty-fourth Congress, and thereafter resumed the practice of law in Bloomington, from 1915 to 1918. He was an unsuccessful candidate for election as a justice of the State supreme court in 1915.

On July 1, 1918, FitzHenry was nominated by President Woodrow Wilson to a seat on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois vacated by J. Otis Humphrey. FitzHenry was confirmed by the United States Senate on July 6, 1918, and received his commission the same day.