BOX, JOHN CALVIN (1871-1941). John Calvin Box, judge, legislator, and Methodist minister, was born near Crockett, Texas, on March 28, 1871. He attended rural schools in Houston County and subsequently studied law at the Alexander Institute (see lon morris college) in Kilgore. He was admitted to the bar in 1893 and practiced law in Lufkin for a time before moving to Jacksonville in 1897. From 1898 to 1901 he was county judge of Cherokee County, and from 1902 to 1905 he served as mayor of Jacksonville. Box was active in Democratic party ^qv affairs and for a number of years was Democratic committee chairman for Cherokee County and a member of the Democratic State Executive Committee; he also served as a delegate to the Democratic state conventions in 1908 and 1910. In 1918 he was elected to the House of Representatives, where he served from 1919 to 1931 and gained recognition for his work to uphold the national-origins quota system of the 1924 immigration law. Box was appointed to the first board of trustees of Southern Methodist University. He married Mina Hill of Lufkin on June 1, 1893; the couple had two children. After his retirement from Congress, he returned to Jacksonville and practiced law. He died there on May 17, 1941.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sam Hanna Acheson, Herbert P. Gambrell, Mary Carter Toomey, and Alex M. Acheson, Jr., Texian Who's Who, Vol. 1 (Dallas: Texian, 1937). Biographical Directory of the American Congress. Dallas News, May 18, 1941. Vertical Files, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin.