Coke Robert Stevenson (March 20, 1888 – June 28, 1975) was an American politician who served as the 35th governor of Texas from 1941 to 1947.

[3] On these trips he studied bookkeeping correspondence courses, history and government by the light of his nighttime campfires as part of a plan to begin a business or banking career.

[3] When Stevenson learned about the opening of the First State Bank in Junction, he applied for a bookkeeping job but was offered a position as a janitor.

Hoping for an opportunity to prove himself and move up in the bank, Stevenson accepted and sold his freight and hauling business.

Stevenson was promoted to cashier at age twenty; he was still a minor, so he had to be legally declared an adult in order to accept.

[7] While cashier, Stevenson began courting Fay Wright, the youngest daughter of Junction's town physician.

[9] Stevenson retired from the county judgeship in December 1920 and returned to private life, with no intention of future public service.

In 1928 after a search to find a candidate for the state legislature in their district to advocate for ranchers' interests proved unsuccessful, Stevenson allowed his name to be offered in nomination.

[3] Stevenson succeeded to the governorship on August 4, 1941, when Governor O'Daniel resigned to take a seat in the U.S. Senate, which he won in a special election against Lyndon B.

[3] In dramatic contrast to the flamboyant and unpredictable O'Daniel, Stevenson's approach was so conservative and taciturn that his critics accused him of doing nothing.

Although Collins received the tacit endorsement of the extremely popular former Governor O'Daniel, Stevenson won the primary with 68% of the vote.

[10] In both the 1942 and 1944 gubernatorial elections Stevenson won a higher percentage in the Democratic primaries than any other candidate in Texan history.

[11] When Stevenson left the governorship in January 1947, he was the longest-serving governor in the history of Texas and had presided over a broad and deep economic recovery during the years of World War II.

By the time he left office in 1947 Stevenson had not only eliminated this debt, but had built a cash balance in the General Fund of over $35 million.

Stevenson was granted an injunction by the federal district court, which barred Johnson from the general election ballot.

[3] Stevenson's character became a subject of historical discussion after the publication of Means of Ascent, the second volume of Robert Caro's best-selling biography of Lyndon Johnson, which covers the disputed 1948 election.

Caro portrayed Stevenson as an honorable statesman and reluctant office-seeker, in contrast to the venal and intensely ambitious Johnson.

'"[20] In the April 26, 1990, issue of the New York Review of Books, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Garry Wills criticized Caro's characterization of the former Texas governor as anti-corrupt and claimed that in his gubernatorial campaigns, Stevenson had also likely forged a significant number of votes in the very same corrupt counties which aided Johnson in 1948.