Kerr worked natural resources, and his legacy includes water projects that link the Arkansas River via the Gulf of Mexico.

Not only did his religious beliefs lead him to teach Sunday school and to shun alcohol throughout his adulthood, it also aided his political aspirations in a conservative state where Baptists were the single largest denomination.

Anderson retired in 1936, and Dean A. McGee, former chief geologist for Phillips Petroleum, joined the firm, which changed its name in 1946 to Kerr-McGee Oil Industries, Incorporated.

[4] Two years later he ran for the Democratic nomination for governor, campaigning as a supporter both of the New Deal and of a vigorous American role in World War II.

For the first time in the state's history, executive-legislative relations remained cordial, largely due to Kerr's patient leadership.

In 1944 he was chosen to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, where he played a back-room role in the selection of Harry S. Truman as vice president.

Unlike many of his peers he generally neglected headline-grabbing issues, including anticommunism, foreign affairs, and civil rights (although Kerr did not sign the 1956 Southern Manifesto and voted in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the 24th Amendment to the US Constitution),[9][10] in favor of more mundane topics such as oil policies and public works.

Kerr's activism on natural gas regulation quickly won him a reputation among his colleagues for being a staunch defender of his region and its special interests, including his own petroleum company.

He built alliances with the powerful southern and western Democrats who dominated the Senate, including Richard Russell of Georgia and Lyndon Johnson of Texas.

"[12] The legislative acumen that Kerr displayed, combined with changes in congressional leadership, had the effect of increasing his importance to John F. Kennedy as an ally for programs on Capitol Hill.

In December 1962, Kerr was hospitalized in Washington for a respiratory illness, and was also found to have coronary artery disease; he died there from a heart attack on January 1, 1963, at the age of 66.

[1] Kerr's chief legacy for the state of Oklahoma is a series of water projects and dams that made the Arkansas River into a navigable inland waterway system.

His first bill in Congress created the Arkansas, White and Red River Study Commission, which planned the land and water development in this region.

Dozens of Oklahoma schools, buildings, roads, streets, parks, organizations, and events are named in Kerr's honor.

[16] Kerr's death contributed to Kennedy's legislative difficulties in 1963, marked the end of the Democratic party's dominance in Oklahoma politics, and signaled the passing of a major figure in the oil industry, but in addition to an estate estimated to be worth at least $35 million, he left a legacy that extended beyond partisan or business affairs.

His forceful use of the federal government to spur regional development, an approach shared by contemporaries, including Johnson, helped integrate the South and Southwest into the national economy.