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Born in Eberstadt, Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, SIMON BAMBERGER came to the United States as a teenager, settling in Utah in his mid-twenties. There he became involved in a variety of businesses, among them hotels, coal and metal mines, railroads, and an amusement resort. He first held public office as a member of the Salt Lake City Board of Education, after which he served in the state Senate before being elected governor at the age of seventy-one. Bamberger was a strong supporter of prohibition and succeeded in securing a prohibition law shortly after taking office. He was involved in the establishment of a Public Utilities Commission, a Department of Public Health, a non-partisan judiciary, and a Board of Control to supervise the state’s penal system, industrial school, mental hospital, and school for the disabled. He also worked for enactment of workers compensation legislation and turned a large state deficit into a surplus during his four years in office. Despite his popularity with the Mormon population of Utah, Bamberger chose not to run for a second term, returning instead to his business interests—including his chairmanship of the Bamberger Railroad and presidency of the Salt Lake and Denver Railroad Company.

Sources:

Sobel, Robert, and John Raimo, eds. Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United States, 1789-1978, Vol. 4. Westport, CT: Meckler Books, 1978. 4 vols.

The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. 20. New York: James T. White & Company.

Utah History Research Center

Utah History to Go

Utah History Encyclopedia

Utah Death Certificate, Utah State Archives

Warrum, Noble, ed. Utah Since Statehood: Historical and Biographical. Chicago-Salt Lake: The S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1919. 3 vols. (Vol. I, pp. 179-192; Vol. III, pp. 314, 317-319.)

“Simon Bamberger, Utah War Governor, Rail Builder, Dies, “Deseret News, October 7, 1926, pages 1 and 6; “Ex-Governor Bamberger Of Utah Is Dead,” Salt Lake Tribune, October 7, 1926, pages 1 and 3.