James K. Weatherford

James Knox Weatherford, Sr., (1850–1935) was an attorney, judge, and politician in the American state of Oregon. Weatherford served one term in the Oregon House of Representatives, gaining the position of Speaker of the House in 1876, before serving three terms in the Oregon State Senate.

A successful attorney, Weatherford was for more than five decades a member of the school board in his hometown of Albany, Oregon, elected mayor of that city in 1886 and 1887, and served for more than two decades as chair of the Board of Trustees of Oregon Agricultural College, today's Oregon State University.

Weatherford is the namesake of Weatherford Residential College, formerly Weatherford Hall, a prominent building on the campus of Oregon State University. The law firm which he established in Albany in 1875 remains in existence today. Weatherford is also remembered for his unsuccessful campaigns as a Democrat for United States Congress in 1894 and 1902.

Weatherford was born March 3, 1850, at Unionville, Putnam County, Missouri. His father, Alfred H. Weatherford, was a native of the state of Virginia and his mother, the former Sophia Smith, was born in Ohio. His father moved to Illinois early in his life and it was in that state that the couple met and married, soon purchasing land in Putnam County, Missouri, towards the western edge of American development in that period.

In addition to farming, Weatherford's father was a small-time local politician, winning election as county clerk of Putnam County and serving in that capacity until his death in 1856. His mother died in 1862, leaving Weatherford an orphan at a young age. In 1864 Weatherford traveled to Oregon along with the family of a friend of his late father's. In his own later telling of the tale, Weatherford said that he had been passing time in a local mercantile when his father's friend William Morgan had casually remarked, "Jimmy, I’m leaving for Oregon tomorrow — you ought to come along and drive a team for me," with the young Weatherford rather spontaneously taking him up on the offer.

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