John Elvis Miller (1888-1981), attorney, congressman, U.S. senator, and federal judge, was born near Aid, Missouri, the son of John A. and Mary K. Miller. After receiving his L.L.B. at the University of Kentucky in 1912, he moved to Searcy, Arkansas, and began practicing law. In 1913 he was elected Searcy's city attorney, and in October, 1914, he married Ethel Lucile Lindsey. Together they had two children, Mary Louise and John E. His first wife died in April, 1955, and in December, 1956, he married Ethel Skinner of Fort Smith.

In 1919-1922 Miller served as prosecuting attorney of the First Judicial Circuit of Arkansas; one of his first tasks in this office was the prosecution of African Americans charged in the Elaine Riot cases. A Democrat, he was elected representative from Arkansas's Second Congressional District in 1930, and would continue to serve in that capacity until 1937, when he became a reluctant candidate for U.S. senator. Miller received the opportunity to become senator upon the death of Senator Joseph T. Robinson in July, 1937. Then Arkansas governor Carl E. Bailey, an ardent supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, secured the state Democratic party's nomination through action of the state central committee, which selected Bailey to succeed Robinson but declined to hold a special primary to affirm Bailey's nomination. After several other Arkansas congressmen declined, including John L. McClellan, opponents of Bailey persuaded Miller to run for the senatorial position. Campaigning on a platform denouncing the high-handed manner in which Bailey received his nomination, Miller defeated his opponent in October, 1937, garnering the support of sixty-two of Arkansas's seventy-five counties. Miller served as senator until April, 1941, when President Roosevelt appointed him to the bench of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas. As judge for that district Miller received notoriety for his decision in 1956 favoring the gradual integration of Little Rock's public schools; the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Miller's decision. In 1967 he was made a senior U.S. district judge. Declining health stopped him from hearing court cases after 1976, although he remained active in the judiciary as a consultant. He finally resigned his position as federal judge in 1979. Miller died on January 30, 1981.

Additional information on Miller is available in the Special Collections Vertical File (folder labeled "Miller, John E.") and the Judge John E. Miller Collection housed in the Old Fort Museum in Fort Smith.