Frank Bell (governor)


Francis Jardine "Frank" Bell was a Canadian-born American politician. He was the sixth Governor of Nevada. He was a member of the Republican Party.

Biography

Bell was born on January 28, 1840, in Toronto, in the province of Upper Canada. He was educated in the common schools of his native country. He was a distant cousin to Alexander Graham Bell. He married Mary Poore on July 9, 1872 in Reno Nevada and they had two children.

Career

Bell came to Nevada in 1858, to supervise the construction of a transcontinental telegraph line though the state from Utah to California. He worked on this project until 1860. Later, Bell became a telegraph operator and was one of operators who telegraphed Nevada's Constitution to Washington D.C. in 1864.
Bell served as warden of the Nevada State Prison from 1883 to 1887. In 1889, he was appointed the eighth lieutenant governor by Charles C. Stevenson. He became acting governor when Governor Stevenson signed a disability certificate on September 1, 1890, making him Nevada's first foreign-born governor. During his tenure, he continued to carry out the policies of the Stevenson administration.
Bell did not seek a full term, serving until the inauguration of Roswell K. Colcord in 1891. He then returned to his work in the telephone and telegraph field. He continued to be politically active. He served as Warden of the Nevada State Prison from 1893 to 1895 and as justice of the peace from 1905 to 1909.

Death

Bell died on February 13, 1927, in his daughter's home in Oakland, California, at the age of 87. He is interred at Masonic Memorial Gardens in Reno, Nevada.