The governor’s office will be much in the news next week with the scheduled inauguration of John Hickenlooper on 1/1 1/11. Despite all the 1’s, Hickenlooper is not the first mayor of Denver to become governor.
That distinction belongs to John L. Routt, a Republican mine owner who served as Colorado’s last territorial governor in 1875 and 1876, and first state governor until 1879. He was mayor of Denver from 1883 to 1885, and was elected governor again in 1891. His wife, Eliza, was Colorado’s first “first lady” in another way. After Colorado women gained the right to vote in an 1893 referendum, she was the first woman to register.
Now let’s find out how much you know about our other governors:
1. Who was the first governor elected to a four-year term?
2. Dick Lamm and Roy Romer each served 12 years, tying them for the longest tenure. Whose was the shortest?
3. Who was the first governor born in Colorado?
4. All our governors have been Republicans or Democrats, with one exception. Who was that?
5. Which governor went on to spend five years in prison?
6. When was the last time a lieutenant governor became governor?
Answers:
1. Until 1958, governors were elected to two-year terms, as Stephen McNichols was in 1956. Following an amendment to the state constitution, he was elected to a four-year term in 1958.
2. Democrat Ray Talbot served only 10 days in 1937. He had been lieutenant governor. Gov. Ed Johnson resigned on Jan. 2 to take a U.S. Senate seat, and Talbot was governor until Jan. 12 when his successor was sworn in.
However, the shortest “term” was that of Republican James Peabody, who resigned just after taking the oath of office in 1905. The 1904 election between incumbent Peabody and Democrat Alva Adams featured widespread corruption. Adams apparently won, but the Republican legislature voted to unseat him and award it to Peabody on the condition he resign immediately in favor of Lt. Gov. Jesse McDonald, thus giving Colorado three governors in one day.
3. Democrat Teller Ammons, 1937-39, was born in Denver on Dec. 3, 1895. His father, Republican- turned-Democrat Elias, served as governor 1913-15, making them our only father-son dynasty.
4. Davis H. “Bloody Bridles” Waite, a Populist elected in 1892. His nickname came from an 1893 speech wherein he proclaimed, “It is better, infinitely better that blood should flow to the horses’ bridles rather than our national liberties should be destroyed.” It was a scriptural reference from Revelations 14:20, “and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles . . . .”
5. Republican Clarence Morley, 1923-25, was an active member of the Ku Klux Klan. After leaving office, he ran a stock brokerage and was convicted of federal mail fraud. He served five years in Leavenworth.
6. In 1973. During his third term, Republican Gov. John Love resigned to go to Washington to be the nation’s first “energy czar,” and so Lt. Gov. John Vanderhoof became governor. Vanderhoof was defeated in 1974 when he sought a term in his own right.
The lieutenant governor’s job seems to be a political dead end. Democratic Lt. Gov. Gail Schoettler lost to Republican Bill Owens in the 1998 governor’s race, and former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton failed to get the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate last year.
And don’t ask my why they call it “lieutenant governor” instead of “vice governor,” which would make more sense. But we’re talking politics here, where “making sense” is seldom a consideration.
Ed Quillen (ekquillen@gmail.com) of Salida is a regular contributor to The Denver Post.
