Besides being the hometown kid growing up to be the 37th Governor of Texas, Allan Shivers was also the youngest person ever to be elected a Texas state senator. Let’s look at how that came to be.
Shivers grew up in Woodville until high school when Judge and Mrs. Shivers decided that a bigger town and larger school would offer their son greater advantages than Woodville in 1923, so they moved to Port Arthur. Completing high school he was admitted to the University of Texas.
While at UT, Shivers had to drop out after his freshman year to help during his father’s illness. He returned to Port Arthur to work as a car repairman helper and a laborer in the boiler house.
He made such a good impression that he was offered a permanent job and an attractive salary for those times. After weighing his options, young Shivers chose to return to UT to pursue his goal of becoming a lawyer.
His UT activities in campus organizations, a fraternity, acting in plays, and being elected president of the student body, in addition to his academic achievements proved to be valuable experiences. While continuing to work his way through school selling shoes at JC Penney’s and working at the state treasury he graduated in 1931.
Along the way, fearing the possibility of a repeated family illness hindering his education, Shivers studied and passed the bar exam to become an attorney before ever attending law school as was allowed in those days. However, he did go to the University of Texas Law School and graduated in 1933.
Having done so well thus far, his father suggested he try a run for the state senate. To everyone’s surprise, and especially his, he won the Democratic nomination on his first step toward politics before he was old enough to hold office. When he took the oath in January of 1935, he was just three months past the constitutionally required age of 26.
At that time and still to this day, he was the youngest person to ever sit in the Texas Senate and thus began Allan Shivers political career moving through the ranks of government culminating in becoming Governor of Texas in 1949, serving three and a half terms until 1957.
To learn more about this hometown kid and his accomplishments for Texas and beyond, pay a visit to the Allan Shivers Museum Tuesday through Friday, 10-3 p.m. and Saturday 10-2 p.m.
