About

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.

Source

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.