Robert F. Kennon - Municipal Politics

Municipal Politics

By the time Kennon was twenty-three, he had successfully challenged Minden Mayor Connell Fort and became for a time the youngest mayor in the United States. In his brief time as mayor, Kennon was elected vice president of the Louisiana Municipal Association. Although his term was generally considered to have been successful, Kennon did not seek reelection in 1928. He was succeeded by a clothing merchant, Henry L. Bridges.

Kennon's relationship with Connell Fort did not end with the 1926 municipal election. Seven years later when Kennon was district attorney for the 26th Judicial District (Bossier and Webster parishes), Fort's son, John L. Fort (1906–1992), subsequently the long-time operator of a news stand in Minden, shot to death Abraham Brisco Nation (1886–1933), a Minden city councilman who had quarreled politically with Mayor Fort. In 1932, Fort had returned to office for a third nonconsecutive term. Nation was the father of twelve children and a foreman for the Louisiana and Arkansas Railway in Minden. John Fort was first incarcerated in Caddo Parish but then held in the Bossier Parish jail for two years. The grand jury never reported a true bill, and Kennon decided not to pursue charges against Fort despite the testimony of two eyewitnesses to the shooting, John L. Garrett and J.R. Murph, then the secretary of the city council.