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| Affiliation | Republican |
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| Name | Thomas Kearns |
| Address |
Salt Lake City, Utah , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
April 11, 1862
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| Died | October 18, 1918
(56 years)
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| Contributor | User 13 |
| Last Modifed | 411 Name Removed
Jan 02, 2011 02:26am |
| Tags |
Catholic -
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| Info | Senator from Utah; born near Woodstock, Oxford County, Ontario, Canada, April 11, 1862; moved with his parents to Holt County, Nebr., and attended the public schools; worked on a farm; engaged in the freighting business; moved to Salt Lake City, and afterward to Park City, Utah; interested in mining and operated several mines; served in the City Council of Park City in 1895; member of the State constitutional convention in 1895; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy in the term commencing March 4, 1899, caused by the failure of the legislature to elect and served from January 23, 1901, to March 3, 1905; was not a candidate for reelection in 1904; resumed the mining business and resided in Salt Lake City, Utah, until his death on October 18, 1918; interment in Mount Calvary Cemetery.
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In 1900 Thomas Kearns, with the help of LDS Church President Lorenzo Snow, was elected United States Senator. The LDS Church withdrew its support from him in 1904 and Kearns faced defeat. Angry, he bolted the Republican party, formed the American party, bought the Salt Lake Tribune, and hired Frank J. Cannon as editor.
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Thomas Kearns was born in 1862 in Oxford County, Ontario, Canada, to Margaret Maher and Thomas Kearns. He moved with his Irish immigrant parents to a farm in Nebraska and there obtained a grammar-school education. The development of mining in the West drew him in 1883 to Park City, Utah, where he worked, prospected, and developed with others the Silver King mine that made him a millionaire. He married Jennie Judge, with whom he had three children. Elected alderman in Park City, he was also a delegate to the 1895 state constitutional convention where he advocated an eight-hour work day.
The Democratic majority in the 1899 legislature had failed to elect a U.S. senator, leaving the seat vacant for two years. In late 1900 Kearns announced his candidacy and was elected the following year by a Republican-controlled legislature. Some accused LDS Church President Lorenzo Snow of engineering the election of Kearns, a Catholic. Well-informed on mining law, Kearns also won recognition in the Senate for his support of Theodore Roosevelt's conservation/irrigation programs. He worked to secure regimental post status for Fort Douglas and for opening the Uintah Indian Reservation to settlement. When he failed to receive support for reelection, he bitterly denounced the power of the Mormon Church in a Senate farewell speech in 1905.
Kearns and his partner David Keith had purchased the Salt Lake Tribune in 1901 and also launched the evening Salt Lake Telegram. Kearns and the Tribune supported the national Republican ticket in 1904 but backed the newly organized American party in Utah. With continued Tribune support the American party won the Salt Lake City municipal election in 1905 and two subsequent city elections. The editorial and news columns of the Tribune persistently attacked LDS Church leaders and their influence on politics; but by 1911 the tone had mellowed.
Kearns died of a stroke in 1918, eight days after being struck by a car at South Temple and Main streets. Under the direction of Mrs. Kearns, the Kearns fortune built St. Ann's Orphanage (now a school), and the Kearns home, which was donated by her to the state in 1937 and is now the governor's official residence.
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