Simon Bamberger House
Near Salt Lake City, Utah
This house was built in the early eighteen eighties for Simon Bamberger, and the man who lived here broke a remarkable barrier in Utah history. Bamberger came from Germany as a teenager, ran a small hotel in Ogden, and built a fortune in mining and railroads, including the electric line that carried his name. Then, in nineteen seventeen, he was sworn in as the fourth governor of Utah, and he made history three times over.
He was the first Democrat to hold the office, the first non-Mormon, and the first and only Jewish governor the state has ever had, in a place where the Latter-day Saint church shaped nearly everything. He was, in fact, only the third Jewish governor in all of American history. In his four years he pushed reforms for public health, for teachers' salaries, for workers, and for farmers.
He was born in Germany in eighteen forty-five and moved to Utah after a Saint Louis garment business failed. In eighteen seventy-two he invested in the Centennial Eureka silver mine, and a major strike in eighteen seventy-four made him a millionaire. He also built Lagoon amusement park in Farmington.
His Salt Lake and Ogden railroad opened in nineteen oh eight, was electrified in nineteen ten, and ran as the Bamberger Railroad until nineteen fifty-five. As governor, he ordered an audit of state agencies that recovered about a million dollars in misallocated funds, and he created a public health department, a public utilities commission, and a water rights commission. He also called the special session that ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, giving women the vote.
At seventy-five he declined to run again. This home still stands, and the legacy of the gentile governor endures.
