He served five terms from the 11th District (which covered a vast area of West Texas) then ran for governor, losing in his first attempt.

When the Civil War began, Lanham volunteered for the Confederate States Army, despite the fact that he was only fifteen years old.

He fought primarily in Virginia, was wounded at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House,[2] and after hostilities ended he married.

His most famous case was the prosecution of Satanta and Big Tree, Kiowa chiefs who had led the Warren Wagon Train Raid in 1871.

[3] He ran for the governorship in 1894, losing in the primary to Charles Allen Culberson but then returned to Congress for six more years, representing the 8th district.

In his first year in office, the Texas legislature passed laws limiting the number of hours a railroad employee could work and regulated child labor.

The following year the legislature passed a bill creating the state insurance and banking commission, and Lanham appointed Thomas B.

Under the existing Texas system, the bulk of the state's income came from a general property tax, but it did not provide the amount of revenue the state wanted to spend and so, at Lanham's request, the legislature began taxing the gross receipts of express companies and pipelines.

The legislature passed two election reform laws during Lanham's administration, both named after their author, Judge Alexander W. Terrell.