Joseph "Holy Joe" Wingate Folk (October 29, 1869 – May 29, 1923) was an American lawyer, reformer, and politician from St. Louis, Missouri.
Raised in a strict Baptist household in Brownsville, Tennessee, Folk first made his reputation as a lawyer for transit workers in the St. Louis Streetcar Strike of 1900. He earned his nickname as 'Holy Joe' by attacking local corruption and party machines, prosecuting the city's Democratic boss Edward Butler and breaking up the corrupt "boodle ring".
Folk was elected the 31st Governor of Missouri as a progressive reformer and Democrat in 1904. He died aged 54 in 1923 in New York City, and is buried at the Oakwood Cemetery in Brownsville, Tennessee.
His Washington D.C. residence is now the Embassy of Mauritania. A 1943 Liberty ship was named in his honor.
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| Preceded by Alexander M. Dockery |
Governor of Missouri 1905–1909 |
Succeeded by Herbert S. Hadley |
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