Horace B. Strait

Horace Burton Strait (January 26, 1835 – February 25, 1894) was a U.S. Representative from Minnesota.

He was born in Potter County, PA, January 26, 1835 and moved with his parents to Indiana in 1846. In 1855 he settled near Jordan, Minnesota, and engaged in agricultural pursuits. In 1860 he moved to Shakopee, Minnesota and ran a general store.

In 1862, Strait entered the Union Army as a captain in the Ninth Regiment, Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, being promoted to major in 1864. He served at the close of the war as inspector general on the staff of General McArthur and was honorably discharged in 1865.

He became a trustee of the Minnesota Hospital for the Insane in 1866 and mayor of Shakopee in 1870, 1871, and 1872, while engaging in mercantile pursuits, manufacturing, and banking.

Strait was elected as a Republican to the 43rd, 44th, and 45th congresses, but failed in his reelection bid in 1878 to the 46th congress. However, two years later he was elected to the 47th and reelected to 48th and 49th congresses.

Strait was more than the "tongueless wirepuller" that one enemy labeled him. Certainly he did not speak much. Most congressmen were sparing in their participation on the floor, but with a very few exceptions, Strait never said anything. One might scan the indexes of the Congressional Record for session after session and never find him intervening with a single word. What measures he dealt with mostly handled the public lands, in most cases opening them wider to settlement. He resisted measures that would take the government land grant away from the Northern Pacific Railroad.

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