James Cowgill
1909-1913

James Cowgill (Democrat), the twenty-second state treasurer, was born on April 2, 1848 on a farm in Henry County, Indiana and educated in the public schools of Indiana.  He joined the 9^th Indiana Infantry on October 7, 1864 and served with the Union Army until September 28, 1865. He moved to Missouri in the August of 1868 and settled on a farm in Caldwell County, where he engaged in farming and raising stock.  The town of Cowgill was built on his farm.  Mr. Cowgill was elected presiding judge of the Caldwell County Court In 1882 and in 1890, represented that county in the thirty-sixth General Assembly.  In 1892 he was elected railroad and warehouse commissioner.  He moved to Kansas City in 1893 and was elected city treasurer there in 1900.  He was elected state treasurer of Missouri in November 1908 for a term of four years.  His salary was $3,000 per year and he employed six people: a chief cashier, three bookkeepers, a stenographer and a janitor.  After completing his term he was chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee in 1916; a member of the Kansas City Board of Elections in 1917, and mayor of Kansas City from 1918-1922.  He was married on September 22, 1867 to Miss Ella Myers in Henry County, Indiana.  They had four children.  He died suddenly at his desk in the mayor’s office on January 20, 1922.