Rufus A. Ayers

[4] Expanding his political career, Ayers served as reading clerk for the House of Delegates from 1875 to 1879, and was appointed a district supervisor by President Rutherford B. Hayes for the 1880 census.

[1][5] Ayers became involved with Virginia politics as a member of the Democratic State Committee of the Ninth Congressional District in 1883.

As Attorney General, Ayers was made a defendant in litigation over Virginia's debt, was held in contempt by the United States Circuit Court, and checked into the Richmond city jail on October 10, 1887.

[5][9] On December 5, before a packed courtroom, the Supreme Court of the United States announced its decision to grant Ayers' petition for habeas corpus.

[13] In 1893, along with his successor as Attorney General, R. Taylor Scott, and William F. Rhea from Bristol, Ayers represented Virginia before the Supreme Court in the boundary dispute with Tennessee over "a strip of land about 113 miles in length, and varying from 2 to 8 miles in width," that would have put all of Bristol, Tennessee in Virginia.

[5] Today, Ayers' mansion in Big Stone Gap is the home of the Southwest Virginia Museum Historical State Park.