Biography: Miles Clayton Allgood born February 22, 1878

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MILES CLAYTON ALLGOOD

BIOGRAPHY and GENEALOGY

(1878- 1977)

Blount County, Alabama

Miles Clayton Allgood was the auditor and commissioner of agriculture and industries for Alabama. He was born February 22, 1878, at Chepultepec, now Allgood’s Station, the son of Dr. William Barnett Allgood and wife, who was Mrs. Mary Matilda (Ingram) Majors, the former born at Chepultepec. Miles’ father served as school trustee, justice of the peace, and postmaster was a Confederate soldier and was a practicing physician since 1870.

He was the grandson of Dr. Forest and Temperance (Clayton) Allgood, the former a native of Pickens District, S. C., moved to Murphrees Valley in Blount County in 1836, where he lived until his death in 1900. Dr. Forest Allgood was a Primitive Baptist minister for sixty years. Miles was the grandson of Council Bruton and Sarah (Bostick) Ingram, the former lived successively at Chepultepec, and at Pulaski, Tennessee, and after his death his widow married William Cornelius, and located in Murphrees Valley. Miles was the great-grandson of John B. Bostick of Tennessee.

Miles C. Allgood was educated in the public schools of Chepultepec and Oneonta, Alabama; attended the Florence normal school, and completed his course in 1908, with a life certificate to teach in the public schools of the State. He has taught at Chepultepec and at Liberty in Blount County; was elected tax assessor of Blount County in 1901, holding that office by re-election until 1909; and served on State executive committee from 1908 to 1910. In 1908 he was elected superintendent of the livestock department of the State fair at Birmingham; and in 1911 was appointed U. S. farm demonstration agent for Blount County, from which he resigned in 1913. He was elected State auditor 1915, and commissioner of agriculture, 1919 -1923; elected to Sixty-eighth Congress in the general election, November 1922; elected to represent Alabama in the United States House of Representatives, serving from 1923 to 1935.

“He is most remembered because he persuaded President Franklin Roosevelt to visit Alabama, leading to establishing the Tennessee Valley Authority. In 1932 Allgood was summoned by the President to Warm Springs, Georgia, for advice on methods to help farmers. Allgood pointed out that fertilizer was one of the greatest needs, and that government facilities at Muscle Shoals could be reactivated to produce fertilizer for Southern farmers.

Allgood, Senator Lister Hill, and other members of the Alabama delegation accompanied Roosevelt on a tour by special train to visit the Muscle Shoals properties utilized during World War I for nitrate, used in munitions. In the President’s special car Allgood pointed out potential sites for developing hydro-electric power. The result was the TVA Act of 1933. He was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1934. He served as a member of the Farm Security Administration from September 4, 1935, until he retired on December 1, 1943. He made an unsuccessful campaign for State treasurer in 1954.

Congressman Allgood represented the district which stretches from DeKaIb and Cherokee Counties on the Georgia line to Franklin County on the Mississippi border, the old seventh district. His congressional career began March 4, 1923, continuing until he retired January 3, 1935.

Allgood was born in Chelpultepec, Alabama, February 23, 1878. The town was later named Allgood, in honor of Miles’ father, Dr. W. B. Allgood. At six he drove horses at a cotton gin, picked cotton at fourteen, and at eighteen passed the county examination to teach. He taught at a three-month school near Chelpultepec for $16 a month.

Before retirement he spent a night at Hal Howe’s Hotel and sensed improvement from the hay fever he was suffering. In 1924 the Allgoods bought a lot from Howe, built a home on the brow, and lived there for the remainder of their lives. He died in March, 1977, at age 99. Mrs. Allgood, the former Willie Randall Fox, died in 1984, in her ninetieth year.”

He was a Methodist, an Odd Fellow, and a Woodman of the World. Miles married February 1, 1917, at Montgomery, to Willie Randall Fox, daughter of David C. and Annie (Randall) Fox, of that place. Their known children are:

1. Miles Clayton Allgood, Jr. He attended the United States Naval Academy and graduated from Vanderbilt University with a degree in Civil Engineering
2. Dr. William David Allgood
3. Mary Fox (Allgood) Boisseau

Miles Allgood died on March 4, 1977, at age 99. He is buried at Valley Head Cemetery, Valley Head, DeKalb County, Alabama. His wife was born Feb. 17, 1894, and died Oct. 14, 1984. She is also buried at Valley Head beside her husband.

SOURCES

1. Alabama Department of Archives and History, Official and Statistical Register, 1919, 21.
2. ADAH Surname Clippings File.
3. Find A Grave Memorial# 42880299; # 7123804; # 88533336  # 28501378 # 28501330# 36538001# 36538000# 114437881
4. www.mentonealabama.org

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