John Calloway Walton (March 6, 1881 – November 25, 1949) was an American politician and the 5th governor of Oklahoma, serving the shortest tenure. He was impeached and removed from office shortly into his first term. A populist member of the Democratic Party, Walton previously served as the 18th Mayor of Oklahoma City between 1919 and 1923.
Following his removal from office, he entered the primary for a seat in the United States Senate, winning the Democratic nomination, but losing to William B. Pine, a Republican. He was elected to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission in 1932 and served until 1939, running for governor again in 1934 and 1938. He died in 1949 and is buried in Rose Hill Cemetery in Oklahoma City.
Early life
John Calloway Walton was born on March 6, 1881, near Indianapolis, Indiana. His family later moved to Lincoln, Nebraska and then again to Fort Smith, Arkansas. He claimed to have worked as the presidential train engineer for Porfirio Diaz while in Mexico, but this is likely untrue. However, he did study engineering in Mexico City before returning to Kansas City to work as a salesman.
Following his discharge from the Army in 1903, Walton traveled to Oklahoma Territory to make his life as a contractor in the field of civil engineering. Walton set up his practice in Oklahoma City. However Walton was not popular amongst Oklahoma City journalists who viewed him as a political upstart.
As Mayor, he launched a "Purity Squad" campaign against crime in the city and struggled with the city commission over control of the Oklahoma City Police Department throughout his term.
Walton entered the 1922 Democratic primary as a candidate for Governor of Oklahoma to succeed James B. A. Robertson. Walton defeated the Ku Klux Klan backed R. H. Wilson and the conservative Democrat Thomas H. Owen.
Walton was inaugurated as the fifth Governor of Oklahoma on January 9, 1923. Walton's inauguration was hosted as a two-day party in Oklahoma City with square dancing and barbecue. The party included "antelope, bear, buffalo, five thousand chickens, deer, ducks, frogs, geese, two hundred hogs, two hundred possums, three thousand rabbits, one thousand squirrels, five hundred beef 'critters,' sweet potatoes, two hundred and fifty bushels of onions, one hundred thousand loaves of bread, and one hundred thousand buns" and "20,000 gallons of coffee." Attendance estimates range from 60,000 to 150,000 people.
Tenure
Once in office Walton appointed the Socialist organizer Patrick S. Nagle to a key advisership role. Walton pushed through agricultural reform: establishing agriculture warehouses, advanced farmer's cooperatives, and farmer's community market associations.
The Oklahoma Constitution strictly forbade any member of the state government from suspending habeas corpus and the legislature was outraged by Governor Walton's move to do so in Tulsa County.
Later political activity and death
In 1924, the year after Walton's removal from office, U.S. Senator Robert L. Owen retired; he had represented Oklahoma in the Senate since it became a state in 1907.
In 1931, Walton ran for another term as Mayor of Oklahoma City, but lost the election. In 1932 he was elected to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, serving from 1933 to 1939.