Tasker Oddie

Oddie was born on October 20, 1870 in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated from New York University Law School with an LL.B. in 1895 and practiced law in New York until 1898, when he moved to Nevada to become the attorney and business agent for the wealthy Stokes family. He joined the Nevada Bar in 1898.[1]

Oddie moved to and made his fortune in the 1900 silver boom in Tonopah, becoming manager of the Tonopah Mining Company. He was the Nye County District Attorney from 1900 to 1902.[2] He was a member of the Nevada State Senate from 1903 to 1906.

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. During his tenure, women got the right to vote, a state motor vehicle law was sanctioned, mining safety legislation was endorsed, and there were improvements to workmen's compensation benefits.[3]

He married Daisy Rendall on November 30, 1916.[4]

He was a 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.

Oddie died on February 17, 1950 in San Francisco at the age of 79. He is interred at Lone Mountain Cemetery, Carson City, Nevada. Mount Oddie near Tonopah is named after him, as is Oddie Boulevard in Reno and Sparks.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tasker Oddie.

• United States Congress. "Tasker Oddie (id: o000035)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Tasker Oddie at Find a Grave
• Loren Chan, Sagebrush Statesman: Tasker L. Oddie of Nevada (University of Nevada Press, Reno, 1973)
• National Governors Association
• Nevada State Library and Archives
• The Political Graveyard
• A Guide to the Tasker L. Oddie Scrapbooks and Correspondence, NC585. Special Collections, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Reno.