Charles Hall Dillon
American politician (1853-1929)

Charles Hall Dillon (December 18, 1853 – September 15, 1929) was a member of the United States House of Representatives from South Dakota (1913–19). He later served on the South Dakota Supreme Court. He was born near Jasper, Indiana in 1853.
Early life and education
He attended the public schools, and received his undergraduate degree from Indiana University Bloomington in 1854, with a graduate law degree two years later from Indiana University Maurer School of Law. He started his career as an attorney in Jasper, later moving to Marion, Iowa in 1881, to Mitchell, Dakota Territory, in 1882, and to Yankton, South Dakota in 1884.
Political career
He was first elected to the South Dakota Senate in 1903, serving through 1911. He was a delegate to the Republican National Conventions in 1900 and 1908. In 1913, he won election to the United States House of Representatives, remaining in that capacity through 1918, when he lost the Republican primary for renomination to a fourth term. On April 5, 1917, he was one of 50 representatives who voted against declaring war on Germany. He returned to Yankton, moving in 1922 to Vermillion, South Dakota, after being made an associate justice of the South Dakota Supreme Court, where he remained until 1926.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Charles Hall Dillon” as american politician (1853-1929). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american politician (1853-1929). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1064716. VIAF identifies the subject as 9611176. The Library of Congress control number is no2006129002. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1853, 1929, 1913 and 1854.
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This entry incorporates text from “Charles Hall Dillon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.