Thomas J. Steele

Thomas Jefferson Steele (March 19, 1853 – March 20, 1920) was a one-term Democratic U.S. Representative from Iowa's 11th congressional district in northwestern Iowa. Steele was the first and only Democrat elected to represent the 11th district in its fifty-year history (from 1883 to 1933).

Born near Rushville, Indiana, Steele attended the public schools and Axline Seminary in Fairfax, Iowa. He taught school in central and western Iowa, and studied law in Sheldon, Iowa. He engaged in the hardware business and in banking at Wayne, Nebraska, and served as county clerk of Wayne County, Nebraska, from 1884 to 1886.

In 1897, Steele moved to Sioux City, Iowa, where he became a livestock commission merchant. His livestock brokerage firm became very profitable, and he gained a good reputation in town. He may have influenced the decision of his architect nephew, William L. Steele (1875–1949), to relocate from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Sioux City in 1904. The elder Steele certainly was influential in assisting his nephew in securing some of his early commissions. This included the Sioux City Livestock Exchange Building (1914), which was among the first of the architect's designs in the Prairie School style of architecture for which he would become famous.

In 1914, Steele upset incumbent Republican Congressman George Cromwell Scott in the race to represent Iowa's 11th congressional district in the Sixty-fourth Congress. One rural newspaper explained, "the central feature of the Steele campaign was personal solicitation of votes and personal publicity concerning the candidate." By contrast, "Mr. Scott remained in Washington until ten days before the election and put in only one week of campaigning." Steele's win was particularly surprising because it occurred in a year in which Iowa Republicans swept all statewide offices and recaptured all seats in Congress held by Democrats.

Steele died in Sioux City on March 20, 1920. He was interred in Graceland Park Cemetery in Sioux City.