Arthur C. Mellette

Arthur Calvin Mellette ( born June 23, 1842 Henry County, Indiana, † May 25 1896 in Pittsburg, Kansas ) was an American politician and from 1889 to 1893, the first Governor of South Dakota. He was also in 1889, the last governor of the Dakota Territory.

Early years

Mellette attended Indiana University. During the Civil War he served in an infantry unit from Indiana. In the following years, he served as a lawyer, businessman, newspaper publisher, and landowners. In Muncie, he published the newspaper " Muncie Times ". There he also served 1868-1870 as a prosecutor. Between 1871 and 1875 sat Mellette as a deputy in the House of Representatives from Indiana. Then he moved to the Dakota Territory. In Springfield, he was employed by the land allocation authority ( Land Office ). In the following years he played an important role in the formation of the new state of South Dakota. In 1883 he was a member of the Constituent Assembly; two years later he was elected provisional governor of the new state. However, since delayed the inclusion in the Union, he could not exercise this office. In 1889, President Benjamin Harrison Mellette was appointed last territorial governor of Dakota Territory.

Governor of South Dakota

Arthur Mellettes task as the last territorial governor was among other things, the preparation of the accession of the two future states in the United States. In October 1889, the first gubernatorial elections took place in South Dakota and Mellette was elected as a candidate of the Republican Party for the first governor of the new state. He took office on November 2, 1889 and kept it for a re-election in 1890 to 3 January 1893. His first task as governor was to establish a functioning administration. In 1890, Pierre was determined as the capital. Then he had to deal with the problems of a major drought, which made the farmers hard to create the early 1890s. Another problem represented the low tax revenue, which led to constant financial constraints of the budget. Problems were found with the living on reservations Indians. The reserves have been constantly reduced and living conditions were poor. While this was primarily a problem with which the federal policy had to deal; but thereby resulting unrest also affected South Dakota and thus its governor. The sad climax of these events was in 1890, the massacre at Wounded Knee in southwestern South Dakota,

Further CV

At the end of his second term Mellette was working as a lawyer. Once it emerged that his finance W. W. Taylor had embezzled state funds, Mellette lost much of its land holdings in South Dakota as a compensation for Taylors scams took the land itself. Later, the ex-governor moved to Pittsburg, Kansas, where he died in 1896. He was married to Margaret Wylie, with whom he had four children.