
David Preston Thompson (8 November 1834-14 December 1901) was the Republican Governor of the Idaho Territory from 1875 to 1876 (succeeding Thomas W. Bennett and preceding Mason Brayman) and Mayor of Portland, Oregon from 1879 to 1882, succeeding William Spencer Newbury and preceding J.A. Chapman.
Biography[]
David Preston Thompson was born in Cadiz, Ohio in 1834, and he worked as a blacksmith and railroad surveyor before moving to Oregon at the age of 19 and building Oregon's first railroad near Oregon City. He served as a land surveyor before serving as a Union Army cavalryman during the American Civil War, after which he entered the mining, banking, railroad, and manufacturing industries. He served in the State Senate from 1868 to 1870, and, from 1875 to 1876, he served as President Ulysses S. Grant's Governor of the Idaho Territory; however, he only made brief trips to Idaho from Oregon and ultimately resigned at Grant's request. He went on to serve as Mayor of Portland from 1879 to 1882, as a Republican presidential elector in 1884 and 1888, and as Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1892 to 1893. He died in 1901.