Mitchell Co., TX - Deaths: Judge Eldon B. Mahon ***************************************************** This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb by: Bob Edgar USGenWeb Archives. Copyright. All rights reserved http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ***************************************************** Retired Judge Mahon dies in Fort Worth By Associated Press December 5, 2005 FORT WORTH - Retired Senior U.S. District Judge Eldon B. Mahon, a Loraine native and a former Abilene lawyer who served as a federal judge for 30 years, has died at the age of 87. Mahon, who died at home Saturday of heart failure, worked for 19 years on the case of the desegregation of Fort Worth schools. ''I feel more satisfied about the progress we made within the Fort Worth school district than with anything else that I dealt with in court,'' Mahon told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in a 2002 interview. ''He was a very fine person,'' said U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth. She sponsored the legislation in 2003 that led to Fort Worth's downtown courthouse being named for Mahon, who had retired the year before. ''His career was exceptional and certainly influential.'' Abilene lawyer Charles Scarborough praised Mahon as ''a great judge to practice in front of. He was very fair to the litigants, and he was cordial to everyone in his court.'' ''He was a wonderful person, an outstanding lawyer and a great judge,'' said Bob Dickenson, longtime Abilene lawyer and former justice of the 11th Court of Appeals in Eastland (1978-98). Mahon, who graduated from Loraine High School and McMurry University, received his law degree from the University of Texas in 1942. He served in the U.S. Army Air Forces from 1942 to 1945, beginning as an enlisted man and attaining the rank of captain. He served in succession as county attorney, district attorney and district judge in his native Mitchell County. He left public service in 1963 to join Texas Electric Service Co. as a vice president, but moved to Abilene to join the late Walter S. Pope Jr. and the late Roger Glandon in founding a new law firm the next year. In 1966, he ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic primary against District 17 incumbent U.S. Rep. Omar Burleson of Anson. Burleson was a colleague of Mahon's uncle, U.S. Rep. George Mahon of Lubbock. Conservative Democrats Burleson, who served in Congress 32 years, and George Mahon, who served 44 years, are both deceased. In 1968, Eldon Mahon was appointed U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas by Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson, and reappointed the next year by President Richard M. Nixon, a Republican. In 1972, Nixon appointed Mahon to the federal bench. In addition to his wife, Nova Lee Mahon, Mahon is survived by three children: Martha Haag, Jana Cobb and Brad Mahon. ---