Joseph Clay Stiles Blackburn (October 1, 1838 – September 12, 1918) was an American politician and lawyer who was a Democratic U.S. Representative and Senator from Kentucky and Governor of Panama Canal Zone.

He practiced in Chicago until 1860 when he returned to Woodford County, Kentucky, and entered the Confederate Army as a private in 1861.

[1] A staff officer, by the end of the Civil War Blackburn had attained the rank of lieutenant colonel.

After the war he settled in Arkansas, where he was engaged as a lawyer and a planter in Desha County until 1868 when he returned to Kentucky and opened law offices in Versailles.

[1] He was appointed Governor of the Panama Canal Zone by President Theodore Roosevelt on April 1, 1907.