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James Walsh speaks at the Oracle Historical Society about Arizona’s first governor.
George Wiley Paul Hunt: his life, accomplishments, experiences and death.
These were the topics of a talk given by James Walsh at the Oracle Historical Society on Sunday, Sept. 25.
Walsh, who served as the Pinal County Attorney and was a Constitution professor at ASU, visited the society on Sunday to give a talk on the biography of George Hunt and his seven terms as Arizona’s first governor.
George W. P. Hunt, the first governor of Arizona after statehood. Public Domain photo
George Hunt was a heavy-set man and also had a handlebar mustache. Walsh said because of his mustache he was supposedly known in some instances as “Curly.”
According to Walsh, Hunt was not the kind of person who could just escape your notice.
“This is not a fellow you’re going to miss on the street,” said Walsh.
Walsh said Hunt served overseas, he was an electoral meditator, a territorial legislator, and “a great friend of labor.”
Walsh said that some of the views Hunt expressed even during his terms of office in the 1910s and 1920s would be even considered radical today.
Walsh said Hunt was born in November, 1859 in Huntsville, Missouri into an agricultural community. According to Walsh, Huntsville was named after Hunt’s grandfather.
“He was a person of his times,” said Walsh, “regardless of how he considered himself as both a lowercase and capital P ‘Progressive.’”
Walsh said Hunt couldn’t afford a textbook which caused him to fail a class which later in life caused him to support education and free textbooks.
Hunt eventually made it to Eastern Arizona by walking and then train hopping through several states, Walsh said. He tried his hand at mining with another man he met, but it didn’t work out. He traded for a burro, and used that to ride into Globe in 1881. He was about 22 or 23 at this point.
This is where Hunt spent the majority of the rest of his life other than leaving to California for a couple of years and working abroad in Siam.
Walsh continued by saying Hunt worked in a couple of jobs when he got to Globe. He was a waiter, a mucker for the mines and he worked in a general store, AE Bailey when he got back from California.
“He never forgot how hard working in a mine was and he had a great deal of sympathy for the workers in Arizona, particularly the miners, “ said Walsh.
After working at the store for 10 years, which became a bank, he became the president of the store.
“He had really risen to the top of that company and really to the social and economic heights of Globe, “ said Walsh.
Walsh said Hunt always had an interest in what was going on in town, and in the 1892 election, he ran for the Gila County recorder and lost.
A couple of years later, he was a member of the Arizona Legislature as a representative for Gila County. This is what started his political career.
Hunt did go around speaking and meeting people, but his opponents called him illiterate and uneducated.
“He was no Jack Kennedy,” said Walsh.
Hunt was re-elected twice before being elected to the Arizona Council as the president of the council in 1900. He went back to the legislature in 1904 and then got married. In 1910, Hunt then gets elected as president of the Arizona Constitutional Convention, right around the time Arizona was in the process of becoming a state. When Arizona was finally made into a state, Hunt was sworn in as Governor.
“Hunt was a pretty active governor,” said Walsh.
Hunt held this position through the 1920s. However, during these years, Hunt was sent out to Siam to represent Arizona abroad.
During his terms as governor, Walsh said, Hunt had pretty liberal ideas for that time.
“He was a regular bleeding-heart,” he said.
One of the bills that Hunt did sign during his term as governor, was a segregation law. “This was a law that said that if you have a school district with six or more African Americans, you had to have a separate law for those students, “ explained Walsh.
The year 1916 was an interesting year for Hunt, Walsh said. The miners were very much against Hunt at this time and during the 1916 election, a mining engineer, Thomas Campbell, was running against Hunt.
“When the dust cleared after the election), Campbell had 30 more votes than Hunt,” said Walsh.
After many re-votes, moving into January, the Supreme Court mandated that Hunt get out of Campbell’s office, since he won. But, in December 1917, the Supreme Court finally said that Hunt was the winner by 47 votes.
“We had close to a year where Campbell was serving as acting governor,” said Walsh.
During his 1918 term, Hunt was accused of being pro-German and anti-American during WWI.
“He was a supporter of our troops,” said Walsh,
After 1918, Hunt did not run for governor again but he was later appointed as “administer potentiary” to the court of Siam, which is known today as Thailand. He then moved to Siam. Walsh said that while Hunt was in Siam, he was writing to people in Arizona “establishing his connections.”
Hunt did come back to Arizona in 1922. He gets re-elected again. He then runs in 1924 and 1926 and wins.
Hunt was the Governor of Arizona in 1912,1914, 1916, 1922, 1924 and 1926. By the time 1926 rolls around, Hunt began to have health problems, Walsh said. Hunt lost in 1928 to John Phillips, a Phoenix lawyer. Walsh said the 1918 term doesn’t count since Campbell was in acting office.
Hunt then moved back to Siam to take a break and then comes back again to Arizona.
He gets elected for his seventh term in 1930, which was his final term in office. He loses in 1932 and 1934.
Hunt’s wife died in 1931 in Globe and then Hunt passed away on Christmas Eve in 1934.
Article by Joshua Delauder
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