James Graves SCRUGHAM, Congress, NV (1880-1945)

SCRUGHAM, James Graves, a Representative and a Senator from Nevada; born in Lexington, Fayette County, Ky., January 19, 1880; attended the public schools and graduated from the engineering department of the University of Kentucky at Lexington 1906; served in an engineering capacity successively in Cincinnati, Ohio, Chicago, Ill., and San Francisco, Calif.; professor of mechanical engineering, Engineering College, University of Nevada, at Reno, 1903-1914 and dean 1914-1917; during First World War commissioned as a major in the United States Army in 1917 and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1918; State engineer of Nevada 1917-1923; State public service commissioner 1919-1923; Governor of Nevada 1923-1927; editor and publisher of the Nevada State Journal 1927-1932; special adviser to the Secretary of the Interior on Colorado River development projects in 1927; elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-third and to the four succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1933, to December 7, 1942, when he resigned to become a Senator; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate on November 3, 1942, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Key Pittman for the term ending January 3, 1947, and served from December 7, 1942, until his death at the United States Naval Hospital in San Diego, Calif., June 23, 1945; interment in Mountain View Cemetery, Reno, Nev.

Bibliography

Scrugham, James Graves, ed. Nevada: A Narrative of the Conquest of a Fontier Land. 3 vols. Chicago: American Historical Society, 1935; U.S. Congress. Memorial Services. 79th Cong., 2nd sess., 1946. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1948.

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