Agency Histories

This fascinating man was born in Darmstadt, Germany on February 27, 1845. Shortly after emigrating to the US, Bamberger got on a train to go to Cincinnati, OH in order to join himself to a large number of his former countrymen. However, due to sleeping through a change of trains, he ended up in Indianapolis, IN. Because the Civil War was raging at the time, he stayed there until 1865. He moved to St. Louis, MO with his brother and started a garment manufacturing company. In 1870, the business failed. He received word of this while in Wyoming attempting to get a customer to pay his bill. Bamberger dealt with this philosophically; he decided to move to Utah.

When he reached Utah, Bamberger opened a hotel in Ogden to serve the people getting off the train at the station there. Unfortunately, he had to close it due to continued outbreaks of smallpox. He moved a few miles south to Salt Lake City and, with a partner, bought the Delmonico hotel, which they renamed The White House. 1872 he decided to invest in the Centennial Eureka Mine, a silver mine that made him a millionaire. Instead of retiring and living off his millions for the rest of his life, this impelled him to invest in a myriad of other businesses. He also took time out of his busy schedule to marry Ida Maas in 1881. Bamberger's first enterprise was to build railroads; his longest lasting and best known was "The Bamberger" which went from Ogden to Salt Lake City. 1910 he converted it to electric. The rail line closed in the 1950s after being sold. Bamberger started an amusement park in Farmington that is still in operation today. Originally, it was situated near the Great Salt Lake and called Lake Park but, after water receded, he moved it to Farmington and renamed it Lagoon. He made sure it was a stop on his rail line. It was bought by the Freed brothers in 1983. Bamberger had Zionist leanings so, 1913-1915 he suported a Jewish agricultural colony in Clarion, UT in order to teach the people farming; which he felt would be essential if they were ever to reclaim thier homeland. The community folded despite his financial support.

Politically, Bamberger was a Democrat and believed strongly in education. He was on the Salt Lake City Board of Education 1898-1903. He believed in universal, free, and public access to education. When schools had a hard time financially, he would give them money to keep them open. 1902-1912 he served in the Utah state senate. He was Utah's governor 1917-1921. Although anti-semitisam was rife in the US during this time period, he only had to deal with a few offensive cartoon caricatures. The prevailing religious beliefs of the area meant many people were friendly and supportive of him. As soon as Bamberger entered office he signed a prohibition bill--as he had promised--and then he started to clean up. He recovered a million dollars of misallocated funds. By the time he left office the state deficit was gone. He passed laws to regulated industry, ensure women's suffrage, applyed restrictons on child labour, and shortened the work day. He supported public education, made high school attendance compulsory and the school year longer. He passed the Corrupt Practices Act to control cronyism and stop bribes. He passed the Labor Organization Act allowing unions to form and instituted Worker's Compensation. He even instituted a Mine tax that took money out of his own pocket. Bamberger also created departments and commissions to deal with road improvements, public health and utilities, and supervise water usage; which is essential in Utah's desert environment. He also created a commission to register and regulate securities; an idea that was fifteen years ahead of the federal government.

Bamberger achieved all those things in just one term. After his term was over, he was already in his seventies but still going strong. He decided not to run again, but to go back to his business interests. Bamberger died on October 6, 1926 in Salt Lake City.