Edward R. Kone

Kone was born on March 15, 1848, in Montgomery County, Texas, the eldest of ten children born to Samuel Reid Kone and Rebecca Sylvira (née Pitts) Kone. When he was born, he weighed ten pounds and, according to the San Antonio Express-News, his father said Kone had the ugliest face that he had ever seen. He was originally named Edwin. He was named for two of his uncles: a maternal uncle named Edward Pitts and a paternal uncle named Reeves Kone. His father was a carpenter who went on to fight in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, dying of illness shortly after the war ended. His mother died in May 1910. Kone grew up on a farm in Stringtown, Hays County, Texas, where his family moved to . He attended private school in San Marcos. He then attended Bastrop Academy and attempted to join the Confederate States Army, but was sent home for being too young. At some point, he worked for a general store in San Marcos and as a cattle drover. He studied law at the Coronal Institute, under William Oscar Hutchison. == Career ==

Kone was admitted to the bar in either 1869 or March 1870. He spent three years in a law partnership with Hutchison, then two years with H. B. Coffield. losing his re-election in 1914. From 1914 to 1920, he served as Assistant Commissioner, under successor Fred Davis. Views Politically, Kone was a member of the Democratic Party. A white supremacist, an obituary in The Austin American described him as "one of the organizers" of the Jim Crow-era Texas government. He opposed Northerner leadership of Texas during Reconstruction. Within agriculture policy, Kone supported small farmers and cooperated with the Texas branch of the National Farmers Union. He also supported the conservation of Texas' natural resources. == Personal life and death ==

Kone married Lucinda H. Martin in November 1872. Kone died on January 30, 1933, aged 84, in Austin, from illness. In 1984, his house, the Kone-Cliett House, was added to the National Register of Historic Places. == References ==