Frank W. Boykin
Frank William Boykin Sr. (February 21, 1885 – March 12, 1969) was a Democratic U.S. Congressman from Alabama’s 1st district, serving from 1935 to 1963. He was born to sharecroppers in Bladon Springs, Alabama, and left school after the fourth grade. He became a successful businessman in Mobile, with interests in lumber, turpentine, real estate, and commissaries. As a boy he worked his way up from water boy to railroad dispatcher and then manager, and by 1905 he had bought a sawmill. He moved to Mobile in 1915, where he continued investing and helped build his family’s business empire. During World War I he worked with several shipbuilding companies.
Boykin entered national politics in 1935, winning a seat in Congress after John McDuffie left to become a judge. He served in the House for nearly three decades, often focusing on helping his district with federal money. He supported aiding the United Kingdom in World War II and voted for the 1941 Lend-Lease Act. He also chaired the House Patents Committee from 1943 to 1947. He ran for the Senate in 1946 but did not win.
Although influential, Boykin was known for missing many roll-call votes. He focused on his district’s needs and built a reputation for helping his constituents, even as he supported segregation. He signed the 1956 Southern Manifesto opposing desegregation and voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1957. He occasionally faced controversy over business ties and influences.
In 1962 Alabama’s congressional delegation was reduced, and the district Boykin represented was eliminated in redistricting. He finished last in a statewide contest among incumbents and left Congress in 1963.
Earlier in his career, during Prohibition, Boykin was a defendant in Mobile’s “whiskey trials.” He faced charges related to illicit liquor, was convicted at times, and had those convictions overturned on appeal.
In 1963 Boykin was convicted of conspiracy and conflict of interest related to land deals in Maryland and Virginia, for which he received six months’ probation and a fine. President Lyndon B. Johnson pardoned him in 1965 at the request of then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
On a personal note, Boykin married Ocllo Gunn in 1913, and they had five children. The couple’s marriage endured for many years, though the record notes Boykin’s infidelities.
Boykin died of heart failure in Washington, D.C., in 1969 and was buried in Mobile’s Pine Crest Cemetery. A posthumous biography appeared in 1973. Several places in his former district were later named for him, including a public housing complex, an elementary school, and a highway. The Tensaw Land and Timber Company, which for decades allowed hunting on its land, ended that arrangement in 2015. Huntingdon College in Montgomery also has a scholarship honoring Boykin.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 08:35 (CET).