Representative George Henry Noonan

George Henry Noonan (August 20, 1828 – August 17, 1907) was a U.S. Representative from Texas and a long-serving state judge who became the first Republican congressman from Texas elected after the end of Reconstruction. He was born in Newark, New Jersey, where he received a liberal education before turning to the study of law. After reading law, he was admitted to the bar and began the practice of law, laying the foundation for a career that would span more than four decades in Texas public life.

In 1852, at the age of twenty-four, Noonan migrated west and settled in Texas, choosing Castroville in Medina County as his new home. There he established a private legal practice and became active in local affairs and politics. His legal work and growing reputation in the community positioned him for judicial service at a time when Texas was undergoing rapid political and social change in the years leading up to and through the Civil War.

Noonan was elected judge of the Eighteenth Judicial District of Texas in 1862. He held this position continuously for more than three decades, serving from 1862 until 1894. During this long tenure on the bench, he presided over a wide range of civil and criminal matters in a period that encompassed the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the post-Reconstruction era. Over the course of his judicial career he became closely associated with the legal and civic life of San Antonio, where he resided while serving as district judge.

In 1894, after thirty-two years on the state bench, Noonan resigned his judgeship to seek federal office. Running as a Republican, he was elected to the Fifty-fourth Congress and served as a Representative from Texas from March 4, 1895, to March 3, 1897. His election marked a significant political milestone: he was the first Republican congressman from Texas to be elected after the end of Reconstruction and the first Republican from the state to win federal office in that period. During his single term in the U.S. House of Representatives, Noonan participated in the legislative process as a member of the Republican Party, representing the interests of his Texas constituents at a time of shifting regional and national political alignments.

Noonan stood for reelection in 1896 to the Fifty-fifth Congress but was defeated, bringing his brief congressional career to a close. After leaving Congress in 1897, he returned to San Antonio and resumed the practice of law, drawing on his extensive judicial and legislative experience. He continued to live in San Antonio for the remainder of his life, remaining a respected figure in the city’s legal community.

George Henry Noonan died in San Antonio, Texas, on August 17, 1907, three days before his seventy-ninth birthday. He was interred in St. Mary’s Cemetery in San Antonio. His career, spanning private practice, more than three decades as a state district judge, and one term in the U.S. House of Representatives, reflected both the continuity and the political transformations of Texas from the mid-nineteenth century through the turn of the twentieth century.