BIOGRAPHY: George Henry Dern; Salt Lake City, Salt Lake co., Utah

Transcribed by W. David Samuelsen for The USGenWeb Archives Project
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History of Utah
The Storied Domain
A Documentary History of Utah's Eventual Career
by J. Cecil Alter
Vol. 2, published 1932 (expired copyright)
The American Historical Society, Inc.

George Henry Dern, governor of the State of Utah since 1925, has well earned
the reputation of being one of the most dynamic and forceful of western
governors since the World war. He is a man of tremendous energy, has the
fortright qualities of the business eecutive as well as the tact of the
skilled diplomat, and his success as governor is written into the hsitory of
the state at large.

Governor Dern was born in Dodge County, Nebraska, September 8, 1872. His
parents, John and Elizabeth Dern, were pioneers of Nebraska, both being
natives of Germany. His father was a well-to-do rancher and business man, and
George Henry was given good educational opportunities, attending the Hooper
public Schools, the Fremont Normal College, and then entered the University of
Nebraska, where he became prominent in athletics, being tackle and captain of
the Nebraska team of 1894, which won the Missouri Valley football
championship.

In December, 1894, he arrived in utah, and became bookkeeper for the Mercur
Gold Mining & Milling Company. His father was largely interested in this
property at Mercur. In 1900 the Mercur Gold Mining & Milling Company was
amalgamated with the Consolidated Mercur Gold Mines Company, with Mr. Dern as
assistant general manager and treasurer. The following year he was made
general manager and from 1904 to 1909 acted as general superintendent as well.
During this time he had under his direction from 500 to 600 men, and his
administration was never characterized by a strike or any labor trouble.

The mining industry of the West knows Governor Dern in other ways than as a
mine manager and superintendent. While at Mercur he was associated with George
Moore, inventor of the vacuum slime filtration, and through Mr. Dern's
assistance this process was developed and put ona commercial basis. Shortly
after the Mercur property was abandoned, in 1913, Mr. Dern became associated
with Theodore P. Holt and Neils C. Christensen in the development of the Holt-
Christensen roasting process. Then with Mr. Holt he invented and patented the
Holt-Dern roaster, a furnace for threating low grade silver ores, in which the
Holt-Christensen process is carried out. This process was first put into
operation by the Mines Operating Company, which had under lease the Ontario
Mine at Park City in 1913-14, and has since been extensively used in Mexico
and South America. Mr. Dern was president and general manager of the Mines
Operating Company at Park City during 1913-14, was general manager of the
Tintic Milling Company at Silver City from 1915 to 1919. He is vice president
and general manager of the Holt-Christensen Process Company, owners of the
Holt-Dern Patent. He is president of the Eureka Banking Company, is a director
of the National Copper Bank and the Bankers Trust Company, is president of the
Park City Consolidated Mines Company, vice president of the Dixie Power
Company, of the Pleasant Grove Canning Company and the Mountain View Mining
Company.

Governor Dern became interested in politics as a young man and his first
political candidacy was in 1914, when he was elected a member of the State
Senate on a fusion ticket of Progressives and Democrats. In 1918 he was
reelected on the State Democratic ticket. While in the Senate he was author of
five imporant measures, the Workmen's Compensation Act, the Absent Votes' Act,
the Mineral Leasing Act, the Securities Commission Act, the Corrupt Practices
Act.

In 1924 Mr. Dern was nominated by the Democratic party for the office of
governor. He was leader of a forlorn hope in a campaign when the tide was
strongly flowing in the Republican direction. He showed his tremendous
industry during that campaign, and that together with the magnetism of his
personality and his acknowledged qualifications for the office brought him the
election by a majority of nine thousand votes, whereas the normal Republican
majority for the rest of the ticket was thirty thousand. After four years of
administration he was renominated in 1928, and in that year, in face of
another overwhelmining Republican landslide for the nation, he for the first
time of any gubernational candidates received over 100,000 votes in Utah and
was elected by a majority of practically thirty thosuand.

Governor Dern during the World war was in addition to his public position as
state senator a member of the Utah State Council of Defense, was chairman of
the committee on war minerals and a member of the advisory board to the state
fuel administrator. In 1928 he was given the supreme honorary thirty-third
degree in Scottish Rite Masonry at Washington. He is a past grand master of
the Grand Lodge of Masons of Utah, has been potentate of El Kalah Temple of
the Mystic Shrine, and is a member of the Alta Club, University Club, Rotary
Club, Country Club, and the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce.

He married June 7, 1899, Miss Lottie Brown, of Fremont, Nebraska. They have
five children, Mary, wife of Harry Baxter, of Chicago; John, practicing law in
New York; William, Betsy and Jimmie.