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Higher Office(s) Served: Senator

CHARLES CLINTON GOSSETT was born in Hillsboro, Ohio, on September 2, 1888. His education was attained in the Princetown public school system. Gossett left home at the age of eighteen, moving west to Oregon in 1910 and settling in Nampa, Idaho. He found work as a farmer and livestock owner, and also succeeded in the shipping business. Gossett entered politics in 1933, as a member of the Idaho House of Representatives, an office he held until 1937. He also served as Idaho's lieutenant governor from 1937 to 1939, and again from 1941 to 1943. Gossett won the 1944 Democratic gubernatorial nomination and was elected governor of Idaho. During his tenure, pay raises were sanctioned for elected state officials, a state teachers'emergency salary aid fund was initiated, a one-cent increase on gasoline and cigarette tax was approved, a bill legalizing parimutuel gambling was vetoed, and a four-year college at Pocatello and the unification of public schools were recommended. Gossett resigned from the governor's office in November 1945, to take an appointment in the U.S. Senate. He served in the senate from November 17, 1945 to November 6, 1946. In 1952, he served as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, and four years later, was appointed to the Idaho tax commission. He also ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1954. Governor Charles C. Gossett died on September 20, 1974, and was buried at the Kohlerlawn Cemetery in Nampa, Idaho.

Sources:

Biographical Directory of U.S. Congress

Idaho State Historical Society

Idaho State Historical Society Gubernatorial Manuscript and Archive Collections:

• Governor Charles Gossett papers. AR2/20.

Sobel, Robert, and John Raimo, eds. Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United States, 1789-1978, Vol. 1, Westport, Conn.; Meckler Books, 1978. 4 vols.