Biography of George North Craig

 

Artist: Frances Norris Streit, American, b. 1919, painted 1954
oil on canvas, 44 x 36 1/4 (111.7 x 92.0)
Signed and dated l.r.: Frances Norris Streit 1954

 

    George North Craig was born in Brazil, Indiana on 06 August 1909.  He graduated from Brazil High School and then attended Indiana University where he received his law degree in 1932.  He then started his legal career with his father, a staunch democrat, in his firm located in downtown Brazil.  He married Kathlyn L. Heiliger and both had two children.

 

     During WWII, he signed with the army and was stationed in Europe where he rose to Lt. Colonel.  He received honors for his leadership by France, Russia, and the United States.  He returned home and resumed his law career and became highly involved with the American Legion on both the local and state levels.  On the local level, he was involved with Post 2 in Brazil which is now the oldest post in the State of Indiana.  During his involvement with the American Legion, he started the Tide for Toys campaign to distribute toys to unprivileged foreign children through the American Legion where he was national commander in 1949.

 

     He became interested in politics around 1950 and unlike his father who was a Jeffersonian democrat; he ran and was elected in 1952 as Indiana’s 39^th governor as a Republican.  He was sworn in on January 1953 and served until January 1957.  During his tenure, he created the Department of Corrections, reorganized the Department of Health in include better mental health, developed a highway safety program, and authorized the first toll road in Indiana.  He was featured on the cover of Time magazine in 1955 where he was mentioned as one of Eisenhower’s favorite young republican.  He was listed as a “…swift-footed, swashbuckling lawyer politician”.  However, Craig’s political future was rocked by scandal when his close advisors were convicted in 1958 of bribery in getting state highway construction contracts.  Sadly, one wonders what he could have become if this conviction didn’t happen right after his term.  Many local residents state that he had Washington D.C. in the palm of his hand and was expected to become big in the Republican Party.

     When he left office, he worked for a partnered law firm in Washington, D.C. and later practiced in Los Angeles, California to direct several business corporations for a period of about 9 years.  Known as the governor who traveled more than any other governor, he finally returned to Clay County in 1967 to work in his quieter Brazil law firm in the old Arketex building and also on his farm.  He died 17 December 1992 and was buried in the Clearview Cemetery in Brazil, Indiana.