Tasker Oddie

Infobox Senator
name = Tasker Oddie


jr/sr =United States Senator
state = Nevada
term_start = March 4, 1921
term_end = March 3, 1933
preceded = Charles B. Henderson
succeeded = Pat McCarran
order2=12^th
office2=Governor of Nevada
term_start2=January 2, 1911
term_end2=January 4, 1915
predecessor2=Denver S. Dickerson
successor2=Emmet D. Boyle
lieutenant2=
date of birth=birth date|1870|10|20
place of birth=Brooklyn, New York
dead = dead
date of death=death date and age|1950|2|17|1870|10|20
place of death=San Francisco, California
residence=
spouse=Daisy Randal Mackeigan
profession=Attorney
religion=Episcopalian
party=Republican

Tasker Lowndes Oddie (October 20, 1870–February 17, 1950) was a Governor of Nevada and a United States Senator.

He was born in Brooklyn, New York, attended New York University Law School and came west to look after business interests of the wealthy Stokes family. He joined the Nevada Bar in 1898, and made his fortune in the 1900 silver boom in Tonopah, becoming manager of the Tonopah Mining Company.

He served as governor between 1911 and 1915 (as he was not married at the time, his mother Ellen Oddie and his sisters acted as official hostesses). On March 17, 1911 he signed the city charter for Las Vegas. He married Daisy Randal Mackeigan in 1918.

He was a Republican senator from 1921 to 1933, losing his bid for a third term to Pat McCarran in 1932. Oddie won the Republican Senate nomination in 1938 but was defeated again by McCarran by a considerably wider margin than in 1932.

He died in San Francisco and is buried in Lone Mountain Cemetery, Carson City, Nevada.

Monuments and memorials

Mount Oddie near Tonopah is named after him, as is Oddie Boulevard in Reno and Sparks.

References

*Loren Chan, "Sagebrush Statesman: Tasker L. Oddie of Nevada" (University of Nevada Press, Reno, 1973)