John Francis Knott

Born in Plzeň, then part of Austria-Hungary, in 1878, he moved to Sioux City, Iowa, as a child with his mother. He began drawing early, and that talent grew into a career in newspaper art and political commentary.

He joined The Dallas Morning News in 1905 and became one of the paper’s defining editorial voices, producing cartoons for decades. His work was widely reprinted, and he is especially associated with the figure “Old Man Texas,” a character that became a familiar symbol in his cartoons.

Knott’s career brought national recognition, including a Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning for Nature’s Answer, his cartoon on the Dust Bowl era. He died in 1963, leaving behind a large body of work that captures the politics, anxieties, and moods of early twentieth-century America.