Sidney P. Osborn
(1941-1948)
"When he was in the sixth grade in Phoenix, Sidney Osborn worte in his school books, "Sidney P. Osborn, Governor of Arizona." The boy had rare foresight: He was to become the only man ever elected to four consecutive terms in the govenor's chair. Politics was Osborn's lifelong obsession. He served as a Congressional aide as a youth, was a political reporter and editor; served as the youngest member of the Arizona Constitutional Convention in 1910, and held political office throughout most of his long career.
Neri Osborn, his father, cleared land for a farm at Central Avenue and McDowell Road in Phoenix in 1870. Sidney Preston Osborn was born there May 17, 1884. At Phoenix Union High School, where he was graduated in 1903, he was one of the school's first football stars. Osborn attended Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., where he learned national politics first hand, and then returned to Poenix to become a political reporter for the Arizona Democrat. His perfomance as a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1910 led to his election as Arizona's first secretary of state in 1912. He was twice re-elected. Osborn continued to be a leader in Arizona Democratic politics, publishing Dunbar's Weekly, a political journal, and making two unsuccessful bids for the governorship. In 1932 he managed Dr. B.B. Moeur's winning gubernatorial campaign, and in 1933 President Roosevelt appointed him Arizona Collector of Internal Revenue. Osborn failed in a third try a the governorship in 1938, but he made it the fourth time in 1940.
Arizona aleady was building World War II training camps at a feverish pace, and Osborn's first three terms as governor spanned US participation in the conflict. He battled with the Legislature on many occasions and set a record for vetoes, but Osborn was one of Arizona's strongest governors. In 1944 he ended the long battle over Arizona membership in the Colorado River Compact by bringing the state in to the pact. Early in his fourth term as governor, it became known that Osborn was suffering from the muscular atrophy known as " Lou Gehrig's Disease" He died in office May 25, 1948 and was succeeded by Secretary of State Dan E. Garvey."
Goff, John F. Arizona
Biographical Dictionary. Black Mountain Press. Cave Creek,
Arizona 1983.
p. 267
Sidney P. Osborn, 1884-1940 : the making of
an Arizona governor / by Margaret Finnerty.
LD179.15
1983 .F484
Inaugural ceremony, Honorable Sidney P. Osborn
: governor of the state of Arizona [program].
GV
1.9:I 51 O 71
Arizona youth : a summary of speeches and recommendations
at Governor Osborn's conference on youth welfare, Phoenix, Arizona, June
22, 23, 24, 25, 1948.
GV
1.9:Y 58
The Colorado River contract and the future of
Arizona / by Governor Sidney P. Osborn.
GV
1.2:O 71 C55
Dunbar's weekly.
AN2.A6
P572x Folio
Letters Exchanged by the Governor of Arizona,
Hon. Sidney P. Osborn...; 1946-1947
CE EPH QC-133
Dunbar's Weekly
CE EPH K-14
Sidney P. Osborn: World War II Governor of Arizona.
CE EPH HM-VII.21
