A lifelong Oklahoman, Houston Benge Teehee was born in Muldrow to a prominent Cherokee family and graduated from the Cherokee Nation Indian Male Seminary in Tahlequah. He attended Fort Worth University in Texas before returning to Tahlequah, where he was ultimately promoted to cashier of the Cherokee National Bank in 1906. He became interested in law and studied under Judge John Pitchford before opening his own legal practice in Tahlequah in 1908. In the same year he was elected mayor of the city and served in that role until 1910. Teehee served as a member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives from 1911 to 1912 and was appointed U.S. probate attorney for Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma from 1914 to 1915. He served as registrar of the U.S. Treasury under President Woodrow Wilson before becoming assistant attorney general of Oklahoma (1926-1927). He was a member of the Oklahoma Supreme Court Commission until 1931, when he returned to private practice in Tahlequah.