FALL, Albert Bacon (1861-1944)

Republican of New Mexico

0th congressional district

Served in Senate 1911-1921

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Biography

a Senator from New Mexico; born in Frankfort, Franklin County, Ky., November 26, 1861; attended the country schools; taught school; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1891 and commenced practice at Las Cruces, N.Mex.; made a specialty of Mexican law; became interested in mines, lumber, land, railroads, farming, and stock raising; member, Territorial house of representatives 1891-1892; appointed judge of the third judicial district 1893; associate justice of the supreme court of New Mexico 1893; Territorial attorney general in 1897 and again in 1907; member of the Territorial council 1897; served as captain of Company H in the First Territorial Infantry during the Spanish-American War; upon the admission of New Mexico as a State into the Union was elected in 1912 as a Republican to the United States Senate for the term ending March 3, 1913; reelected in June 1912, but as the Governor did not sign the credentials, was again elected in January 1913; reelected in 1918, and served from March 27, 1912, until March 4, 1921, when he resigned to accept a Cabinet position; chairman, Committee on Expenditures in the Department of Commerce and Labor (Sixty-second Congress), Committee on Geological Survey (Sixty-fifth Congress), Committee on Pacific Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands (Sixty-sixth Congress); appointed Secretary of the Interior by President Warren Harding and served from March 1921, until March 1923, when he resigned; resumed his former business pursuits in Three Rivers, N.Mex.; convicted of bribery for leasing federal lands to oil companies in exchange for personal loans, Fall spent nine months in a New Mexico state prison, 1931-1932; died in El Paso, Tex., November 30, 1944; interment in Evergreen Cemetery.
Courtesy of Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

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