Born: March 13, 1872
Died: June 19, 1924
Term: June 11, 1920 - January 4, 1921
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Horace Cadwell Gordon was the son of Richard and Lucy Cadwell Gordon. He studied law at the University of Michigan and the Cincinnati Law School where he graduated with an L.L.B. degree in 1895. Gordon married Lucy Weiner on December 4, 1895, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Horace Gordon moved to Tampa with his wife and established a successful law practice.
In 1902, Mayor James McKay, Jr. appointed Horace Gordon as a municipal judge. Gordon also served as a judge of the criminal court from 1904 until 1913, when he was appointed State's Attorney. He served in this position until 1920 when he resigned to campaign for mayor and won the election. However, Gordon was in office for only seven months.
In January 1921, the mayor-commissioner system of government went into effect. Charles H. Brown, who had run unopposed in the fall of 1920, was sworn into office as Tampa's new Mayor-Commissioner.
Horace Gordon died in Tampa on June 19, 1924.
Sources for this Biographical Sketch:
Covington, Dr. James W., and Wavering, Debbie Lee, "The Mayors of Tampa: A Brief Administrative History," Tampa, FL: University of Tampa, 1987.
Grismer, Karl H., Tampa: A History of the City and the Tampa Bay Region of Florida, St. Petersburg Printing Company, FL, 1950.
Robinson, Ernest L., History of Hillsborough County, Florida: Narrative and Biographical, The Record Company, St. Augustine, FL, 1928.
Tampa Council Minutes, City of Tampa Archives, Tampa, FL
February 27, 1917 - June 11, 1920 Roll # 7
June 15, 1920 - May 29, 1923 Roll # 8