Coon resigned after less than two years in the state House to become mayor of Monroe upon the death at the age of thirty-seven of his predecessor, George Olan Breece (October 21, 1912 – November 6, 1949), a native of Kanawha, West Virginia.[2] Coon then won a full term as mayor in 1952 and was succeeded in 1956 by fellow Democrat W. L. "Jack" Howard, who served for five nonconsecutive terms in the office between 1956 and 1978. After his mayoral tenure, Coon was from 1956 to 1964 the Louisiana state fire marshal under GovernorsEarl Kemp Long and Jimmie Davis.[3]
Coon was the youngest child of the former Henrietta Henson (1865–1947) and Jacob Allen Coon (1858–1919)[4] of the Okaloosa Community in Ouachita Parish. Coon's father died before Coon was a teenager. His sister and last surviving sibling was Eunice Coon Williamson (1891–1991), an English and foreign languages faculty member from 1928 to 1958 at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston.[5] Coon's first wife, the former Lera Whitten (1907–1980), was a 40-year teacher at Ouachita Parish High School; after her death, he wed the widowed Mattie Rose Ferguson Barnett Downs (1910-1998).[6] Coon had a stepson, the late John Harden Barnett Downs,[3]
a five-term at-large member of the Alexandria City Council for whom the Johnny Downs Sports Complex in Alexandria is named. Johnny Downs' adopted father and Mattie Coon's previous husband was Malcolm Calvin Downs (1907–1953).[7]
