King joined the North-West Mounted Police and was part of the first contingent sent west to establish Fort Calgary in 1875.

According to his scrip record, Antoine Godin, a Métis, had taken up more-or-less permanent residence in the vicinity of Calgary as early as 1870.

His son Edward (1885–1970) became a well-known ice hockey player in Calgary, and also played professionally with the Ottawa Senators in 1911–12.

King was elected following the Travis Affair where Mayor George Murdoch along with councillors Issac Sanford Freeze and Dr. Neville James Lindsay were removed from office effective October 21, 1886, by a special Territorial Ordinance issued by Stipendiary Magistrate Jeremiah Travis on allegations that Mayor Murdoch tampered with the voters' list in the prior election.

After his retirement as postmaster in 1921, he opened a tobacco and confectionery counter in MacLean's Drug Store on Eighth Avenue.