Born in
Calhoun in western
Ouachita Parish, Mills attended public schools and then enrolled at
Louisiana Tech University in
Ruston,
Louisiana State University in
Baton Rouge,
Northwestern State University, then Louisiana Normal College, in
Natchitoches, and Spencer Business College in
New Orleans. He also studied law.
Early career From 1921 to 1932, Mills taught school in
Mer Rouge in
Morehouse Parish. He was the Louisiana supervisor of public accounts from 1933 to 1936. He was also engaged in agricultural pursuits, cattle raising, real estate, and oil. In 1936, he served as colonel on the staff of the
governor.
Congress Mills was elected as a
Democrat to the Seventy-fifty, Seventy-sixth, and Seventy-seventh Congresses from January 3, 1937, to January 3, 1943. He unseated Representative
Riley J. Wilson of
Catahoula Parish in the 1936 Democratic
primary. In 1942, however, he was himself defeated for renomination by
Charles E. McKenzie, a native of
DeSoto Parish who had relocated to Monroe.
Later career and death In 1950, Mills and Malcolm Lafargue, the former
U.S. attorney for the
United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, based in
Shreveport, waged unsuccessful intraparty challenges to
U.S. Senator Russell B. Long, son of the legendary
Huey Pierce Long, Jr. Mills resumed his involvement in oil and natural gas, cotton planting, and a building-supply company. He was a resident of Monroe until his death there at the age of ninety-six on May 15, 1996. He was the last living U.S. representative born in the nineteenth century. ==References==