Ralph Henry CAMERON, Congress, AZ (1863-1953)

CAMERON, Ralph Henry, a Delegate and a Senator from Arizona; born in Southport, Lincoln County, Maine, October 21, 1863; attended the common schools; emigrated to the West and became interested in mining and stock raising; locator and builder of the Bright Angel trail into the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River in Arizona; moved to the Territory of Arizona in 1883; sheriff of Coconino County in 1891 and 1894-1898; member of the board of supervisors of Coconino County 1905-1907 and served as chairman; elected as a Republican Delegate to the Sixty-first and Sixty-second Congresses and served from March 4, 1909, to February 18, 1912, when Arizona was admitted as a State into the Union; resumed mining pursuits at Phoenix, Ariz.; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1920 and served from March 4, 1921, to March 3, 1927; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1926 and for election in 1928; engaged in mica mining in North Carolina and Georgia and in gold mining in California; resided in Los Angeles, Calif., and Yuma, Ariz., until his death in Washington, D.C., while on a business trip, February 12, 1953; interment in the American Legion Cemetery, Grand Canyon, Ariz.

Bibliography

Lamb, Blaine. ‘A Many Checkered Toga: Arizona Senator Ralph H. Cameron, 1921-1927.’ Arizona and the West 19 (Spring 1977): 47-64; Strong, Douglas H. “The Man Who ‘Owned’ Grand Canyon.” American West 6 (September 1969): 33-40.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present