Patrick Nash

Early life King-Nash House, residence of Patrick Nash from 1925 to 1943. Nash was born on Chicago's Rush Street, near Delaware Place. When he was six, his family moved to the West Side of Chicago.

He became a ward committeeman under Roger Sullivan, an earlier Chicago political boss. At the same time, Nash and his brother Richard formed Nash Brothers, a contractor company that specialized in sewer building. The company remained in place for more than 40 years and earned more than $14 million from work for the Chicago Sanitary district. In 1925, city contracts for Nash Brothers resulted in Nash having one of the ten highest incomes in the city of Chicago.

Political rise Nash was active in Chicago politics from the early twentieth century. He was first appointed to political office in 1915, when he served on the Cook County Board of Assessors. Three years later, he was elected to the Cook County Board of Review, which set tax valuations. He ran for reelection in 1924, supported by the Chicago teachers' union, but lost in an election in which the Democrats were swept from office by the Republicans, and never ran for public office again. Nash did continue to run for Democratic party offices and served as a ward committeeman for the 14th Ward and later for the 28th Ward.

A close ally of Anton Cermak, when Cermak was elected Mayor of Chicago in 1931, he asked Nash to become Cook County Democratic Party Chairman. Nash was said to have represented the professional, and less narrowly ethnic, wing of the Irish contingent, which would help him to expand the party base.

Nash's period of domination in Chicago began with Cermak's assassination in 1933. When Cermak died, Nash helped promote Frank J. Corr to be the acting mayor of Chicago. Nash and other party leaders lobbied for a change in the city charter which called for a special election in the case of the death of an incumbent mayor. With an expensive special election looming during the Great Depression, they struck a deal with the Republican-led state legislature to grant the Chicago City Council the authority to appoint a permanent mayor.

The political machine Nash built up with Kelly's help survived until four years after Nash's death. Part of their success was that they handed out jobs to ethnic groups across the European spectrum, rather than just to Chicago's Irish population. Nash and Kelly began to integrate Blacks into Chicago's political process. Nash provided financial resources and Kelly served as its front.

In 1940, Nash offered his support to Louie Lewis, who was running for lieutenant governor in the Democratic primary. After Nash announced his support, a longtime friend of his, State Senator George M. Maypole, told Nash that he was planning on running against Lewis in the primary. Nash informed Maypole that as he had already given his word to Lewis, he would continue to support Lewis in the primary. Although Lewis defeated Maypole, he went on to lose in the general election and rumors persisted that Nash's support and efforts were not wholehearted. In an attempt to quell those rumors, Nash ordered that Maypole be "purged" when he was up for re-election in 1942 and Maypole lost to Norman Barry in that year's primary. who was succeeded by Jacob M. Arvey

Personal life Nash was a fan of horse racing, and owned a stables, Shannon Farm. In addition, he owned a horse farm in the Bluegrass region of Kentucky, where he raised horses to be raced.