Representative Sterling Price Strong

Sterling Price Strong (August 17, 1862 – March 28, 1936) was a U.S. Representative from Texas. He was born on a farm near Jefferson City, Cole County, Missouri, on August 17, 1862. In 1871 he moved with his parents to Texas, where the family settled in Montague County, then a sparsely populated area of the state. Growing up in a rural environment on the Texas frontier, Strong attended the rural schools of Montague County, receiving a basic education that prepared him for clerical and business work.

Seeking further training, Strong enrolled at Eastman’s National Business College in Poughkeepsie, New York, a prominent commercial school of the period. He was graduated from Eastman’s in 1884, acquiring formal instruction in business methods and accounting that would shape his early professional life. Upon returning to Texas after his studies, he quickly entered public service in his adopted home county.

Strong began his political and administrative career as county clerk of Montague County, serving from 1884 to 1888. In this capacity he was responsible for maintaining official county records and overseeing various administrative functions at a time when local government was central to community life. In 1889 he served as engrossing clerk of the Texas State Senate, a position that involved the preparation and final copying of bills and resolutions passed by the legislature. That same year he moved to Hale County, Texas, where he served as county and district clerk from 1889 to 1892, extending his experience in local government and judicial administration.

After leaving the clerk’s office in Hale County, Strong entered private business as a traveling salesman, a role he held from 1892 to 1898. He returned to elective office in Montague County as county clerk from 1898 to 1904, resuming his earlier responsibilities and reinforcing his standing in local Democratic politics. During this period he also became active in state party affairs, serving as a member of the Texas State Democratic Executive Committee from 1900 to 1902, which placed him within the organizational leadership of the dominant political party in Texas at the turn of the century.

Strong’s career thereafter alternated between banking and commercial pursuits. From 1908 to 1911 he served as cashier of the National Bank of Bowie in Bowie, Montague County, Texas, managing day-to-day banking operations and gaining further experience in finance. He then returned to life on the road as a traveling salesman from 1911 to 1932, a long tenure in which he worked across Texas and possibly neighboring states, maintaining wide personal and business contacts. His prominence in Democratic circles led him to seek higher office, and in 1930 he was an unsuccessful candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Texas, reflecting both his ambition and his established reputation within the party.

Strong reached the peak of his public career with his election to the United States House of Representatives. Running as a Democrat, he was elected at large from Texas to the Seventy-third Congress and served from March 4, 1933, to January 3, 1935. His term coincided with the early years of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration and the initial phase of the New Deal, a period of intense legislative activity as Congress addressed the Great Depression. Representing Texas in this at-large capacity, Strong participated in the national legislative response to the economic crisis. In 1934 he sought renomination but was unsuccessful, bringing his brief congressional service to an end.

After leaving Congress, Strong did not return to elective office. He spent his remaining years in Texas, where he had lived since childhood and where his public and business careers had been centered. Sterling Price Strong died in Dallas, Texas, on March 28, 1936. He was interred in Old Oak Cliff Cemetery in Dallas, closing a life that spanned frontier-era Texas, the rise of the state’s Democratic political establishment, and the transformative national politics of the New Deal era.