Bamberger, Simon, 1845-1926

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.

<p>Simon Bamberger was the fourth governor of the state of Utah. Born in 1846 at Eberstadt, Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, to Emanuel Bamberger and Helen Fleish, he emigrated to the United States at the age of fourteen. He manufactured clothing in St. Louis before coming to Utah, where he arrived sometime in the 1870s or 1880s. He ran two small hotels and then made a fortune by investing in the Centennial Eureka Mine in Juab County as well as in other Utah and Nevada mines. He built the Salt Lake and Ogden Railway as well as the Lagoon resort in Farmington.</p>

<p>In 1881 Bamberger married Ida Maas, and the couple had four children. He served on the Salt Lake City Board of Education from 1898 to 1903 and once donated money to help keep the schools open. Elected to the state senate in 1902, the only Democrat winning in Salt Lake County, he proposed several progressive measures during the 1903 and 1905 sessions and gained a reputation as somewhat of a wit. He was defeated in a state senate race in 1912. He planned to run for the U.S. Senate in 1916, but withdrew in favor of William H. King and sought the governor’s seat instead. LDS Apostle Brigham H. Roberts made what many considered a brilliant speech nominating Bamberger and calling for an end to the selection of candidates on the basis of church affiliation. Bamberger defeated Alfred W. McCune, another wealthy mining man and a Mormon, on the second ballot of the primary election. An anti-Semitic circular depicting Bamberger with a large nose was denounced by most Utahns. Pledged to sign a prohibition bill, he easily defeated Prohibitionist Nephi L. Morris, running in this election as a Republican, becoming the second Jew elected to a U.S. governorship.</p>

<p>Having inherited a large deficit, the governor called for an audit that recovered a million dollars from various state agencies The Democrat-controlled legislature, with Bamberger’s approval, passed such progressive legislation as creating a Public Utilities Commission and passing a Workmen’s Compensation Act to be administered by a new State Industrial Commission, a Corrupt Practices Act, a Labor Organization Act, and a bill implementing the initiative and referendum process were also passed, and the governor also signed a statewide prohibition bill.</p>

<p>Simon Bamberger (February 27, 1845 – October 6, 1926) was the fourth Governor of Utah (1917–1921) after it achieved statehood from territorial status in 1896. Bamberger retains the distinction of being the first non-Mormon, the first Democrat, as well as the first, and to date only, Jewish Governor of Utah. He was also the third Jew ever elected governor of any state, after Washington Bartlett of California and Moses Alexander of Idaho.</p>

<p>Born on February 27, 1845 in Darmstadt-Eberstadt, Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, Bamberger was the son of Emanuel Bamberger and the former Helen Fleisch. He emigrated to the United States at the age of fourteen, shortly before the American Civil War broke out. Landing in New York City, he embarked on a train to Cincinnati, Ohio. This was a logical destination, because Cincinnati was one of the leading centers of German life in the United States at the time. However, Bamberger missed the connection at Columbus and ended up in Indianapolis, Indiana and, then Terre Haute, Indiana. He remained there until the Civil War ended in 1865, at which point he relocated to St. Louis, Missouri—perhaps not coincidentally, also a major focal point of German immigrants—and established a garment manufacturing company with his brother Herman. A few years later, while in Wyoming to collect a debt, Bamberger got word that the business had failed. Figuring he had nothing to lose, he struck out for Utah, which at that time was still a territory and barely settled.</p>

<p>Bamberger married Ida Maas in 1881. They had four children.</p>

<p>Bamberger began operating a small hotel in Ogden, Utah, not far from Salt Lake City. A short time later, an outbreak of smallpox resulted in a quarantine that forced the Union Pacific Railroad to bypass the town, so Bamberger moved on to Salt Lake itself, where he operated the Delmonico Hotel with a partner. In 1872, Bamberger invested in a silver mine, the Centennial Eureka Mine in Juab County. A major vein of silver was struck two years later, making Bamberger a millionaire; for a brief time, he contemplated retiring, but soon got involved in building railroads. He opened various lines linking Salt Lake City to mining operations, but the ventures lost a substantial amount of money, and during this period also built Lagoon, a large amusement park in Farmington, Utah. Another notable venture Bamberger pursued was the establishment of a Jewish agricultural colony in Clarion, Utah. These were the years of the nascent Zionist movement spearheaded by Theodor Herzl, also a German Jew. Herzl believed that Jews, hitherto stigmatized as a rootless, wandering people, urgently needed to get in touch with the soil and develop the agricultural skills that centuries of restrictions in Europe had kept from them. It is quite possible that these ideas influenced Bamberger; unfortunately, however, despite Bamberger's fundraising efforts between 1913 and 1915, the community folded.</p>

<p>Simon Bamberger was born in 1846 in Eberstadt, Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany.</p>

<p>His parents were Emanuel and Helen Fleich Bamberger. They saved enough money for Simon to immigrate to America in 1860, at the age of 14.</p>

<p>The sweatshops in the commercial centers of the East Coast did not appeal to Simon.</p>

<p>He headed West to Cincinnati, where there was a larger German-speaking Jewish community, and where it would be easier for him to learn English.</p>

<p>His first job was setting pins in a bowling alley, after which he clerked in a dry goods store.</p>