Walter R. Stubbs

Walter Roscoe Stubbs (November 7, 1858 March 25, 1929) was an American businessman who served as the 18th governor of Kansas. Stubbs, a progressive Republican, was known for his prohibitionist beliefs, as well as for having signed the nation's first blue sky law into effect.

Biography

Early life

Stubbs was born in Wayne County, Indiana, near the city of Richmond, to a family of Quaker heritage. Stubbs served two terms as governor, from January 11, 1909, to January 13, 1913. Upon ascending to the gubernatorial position, he made a name for himself by calling for the "recall of unworthy or incompetent public officials."

As a prohibitionist, Stubbs also made it a priority to stamp out illegal bootlegging. Specifically, he focused his attention on Crawford County, Kansas (then nicknamed the "Little Balkans"), where many individuals were making bootleg whiskey to supplement their meager incomes as strip miners. According to the criminal justice scholar Ken Peak, "The [Little] Balkans drove him absolutely nuts. He had his hands full and sent people down to the Balkans to clean it up".

Near the end of his second term as governor, Stubbs won his party's nomination for the U.S. Senate. However, in the general election in November 1912, Democrat William H. Thompson, defeated Stubbs in his bid for the office. Stubbs was again a candidate for the Senate in 1918, but was narrowly defeated in the Republican primary by Arthur Capper.

W. R. Stubbs's mansion, which is now the Sigma Nu fraternity house at the University of Kansas (2018).

Upon leaving the governor's office, Stubbs returned to his mansion on Windmill Hill in Lawrence, Kansas, situated just west of the University of Kansas campus. The building, which had been constructed in 1907, was sold by Stubbs in 1922 to KU's Sigma Nu chapter, and to this day, it is still used as their fraternity house.

Death

After suffering with heart trouble for some time, Stubbs died on March 25, 1929, in Topeka, Kansas, at the age of 70. He is interred at Oak Hill Cemetery in Lawrence.

Senator of Kansas