11 Facts About Overton Brooks

Thomas Overton Brooks was a Democratic US representative from the Shreveport-based Fourth Congressional District of northwestern Louisiana, having served for a quarter century beginning on January 3,1937.

Overton Brooks was admitted to the bar and began his practice in Shreveport in Caddo Parish in the northwestern corner of his state.

On June 1,1932, Overton Brooks married the former Mary Fontaine "Mollie" Meriwether, a daughter of Minor Meriwether, a planter and banker originally from Hernando, Mississippi, and the former Anne Finley McNutt, both of whom died in Shreveport.

Overton and Mollie Brooks had one child, Laura Anne Brooks, who like her mother died in Houston, Texas.

Overton Brooks faced a showdown with Henry Andrew O'Neal, a Shreveport insurance agent originally from Linden in Cass County, Texas.

In 1948, Overton Brooks defeated two intra-party rivals Harvey Locke Carey of Minden, a former short-term US attorney for the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, and former State Senator Lloyd Hendrick, a Natchitoches Parish native residing in Shreveport.

Overton Brooks urged the strengthening national defense, the expanded production of natural gas, rural electrification, and "fair prices" for farm, dairy, and ranch products.

Overton Brooks served on the US House Committee on Armed Services from 1947 to 1958, and he then became the first chairman of the newly formed House Space Committee, reportedly because his seniority entitled him to a more important post on Armed Services than he was considered capable of handling.

Two conservative legislative assistants to Representative Overton Brooks, Ned Touchstone and Billy McCormack, went on to careers of their own in advocacy journalism and the Christian ministry.

Overton Brooks was a member of the Masonic Lodge, the Shriners, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Kiwanis International.

Overton Brooks is interred at Forest Park Cemetery East in Shreveport, the resting place of many Shreveport politicians.