Gracie Pfost
| Gracie Pfost | |
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| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Idaho's 1st district |
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In office January 3, 1953 – January 3, 1963 |
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| Preceded by | John Wood |
| Succeeded by | Compton White |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Grace Bowers March 12, 1906 Harrison, Arkansas, U.S. |
| Died | August 11, 1965 (aged 59) Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) | Jack Pfost (1923–1961) |
| Alma mater | Link's Business College |
| Religion | Methodism |
Gracie Bowers Pfost (March 12, 1906 – August 11, 1965) was the first woman to represent Idaho in the United States Congress, serving five terms as a Democrat in the House of Representatives. Pfost represented the state's 1st district from 1953 to 1963.
Born in an Ozark Mountain log cabin in Harrison, Arkansas, Pfost was five when her parents moved to a farm near Boise, Idaho, in 1911. One of five siblings, she quit Meridian High School at 16 in 1922 and worked as a milk analyst at a dairy in Nampa. The next year she married her supervisor, Jack Pfost, who was more than twice her age. She later graduated from Link's Business College in Boise in 1929.
Pfost entered politics in Canyon County; she held several positions in county government between 1929 and 1951, including deputy county clerk, auditor, recorder of deeds, and county treasurer. She also served as an Idaho delegate to all Democratic National Conventions between 1944 and 1960. The Pfosts ran a real estate business in the 1940s and into the 1950s.
In 1950, Pfost ran for Congress and won the Democratic nomination over Harry Wall of Lewiston, but narrowly lost to Republican John Travers Wood, a physician from Coeur d'Alene. In 1952, she defeated former eight-term Congressman Compton White, Sr. of Clark Fork in the Democratic primary and unseated Wood in another close general election. Pfost was reelected in 1954, 1956, 1958, and 1960. The "Hell's Belle" of Congress, she was a moderately liberal Democrat, who earned her nickname in her first year, fighting for a large federal dam on the Snake River in Hells Canyon. After years of debate, the single high dam was ultimately defeated and built as a three-dam complex (Brownlee, Oxbow, Hells Canyon) by the local private utility, Idaho Power.
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