Joe M. Kilgore

Who was Joe M. Kilgore?

Joe Madison Kilgore served from 1955 to 1965 as a U.S. Representative from Texas's 15th congressional district.

Born in Brown County, near Brownwood in west central Texas, Kilgore attended the public schools of Rising Star in Eastland County in north central Texas. In 1929, he moved with his family to Mission in south Texas, where he also attended public schools.

From 1935 to 1936, Kilgore attended Trinity University, then known as Westmoreland College, located in San Antonio, Texas. His legal studies were interrupted at the University of Texas School of Law in July 1941 to enlist in the United States Army Air Corps. He was a combat pilot in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations.

Kilgore was awarded the Silver Star, Distinguished Flying Cross, and Air Medal with two Oak leaf clusters. He was discharged from the Army in 1945 as a lieutenant colonel.

He returned to law school, and in 1946 he was admitted to the bar. He began his law practice in Edinburg in Hidalgo County in south Texas.

He served as member of the Texas House from 1947 to 1955. He was a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in 1956, 1960, and 1968.

Kilgore was elected as a Democrat to the Eighty-fourth and to the four succeeding Congresses. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1964 to the Eighty-ninth Congress. Instead, he resumed the practice of law, having resided in Austin until his death there on February 10, 1999. He is interred in Austin at the Texas State Cemetery alongside his wife, the former Jane Redman.