William E. Cox

Who was William E. Cox?

William Elijah Cox was a U.S. Representative from Indiana.

Born on a farm near Birdseye, Indiana, Cox attended the common and high schools of Huntingburg and Jasper, Indiana. He graduated from Lebanon University, Tennessee, in 1888. He then went to the law department of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor from which he graduated in 1889. He was admitted to the bar July 10, 1889, and commenced practice at Rockport, Indiana, moving to Jasper, Indiana, later in the same year. He served as prosecuting attorney for the eleventh judicial district of Indiana 1892-1898.

Cox was elected as a Democrat to the Sixtieth and to the five succeeding Congresses. He served as chairman of the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Treasury. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1918 to the Sixty-sixth Congress. He resumed the practice of law and also was engaged with a desk-manufacturing company, serving as president at the time of his death. He died in Jasper, Indiana, March 11, 1942. He was interred in Fairmount Cemetery, Huntingburg, Indiana.