Frank Steunenberg (8 August 1861 – 30 December 1905) was the Democratic Governor of Idaho from 4 January 1897 to 7 January 1901, succeeding William J. McConnell and preceding Frank W. Hunt.
Biography[]
Frank Steunenberg was born in Keokuk, Iowa in 1861 and raised in Knoxville. He worked for the Des Moines Register before moving to Caldwell, Idaho and taking over the Caldwell Tribune for six years. He participated in Idaho's 1889 constitutional convention before being elected Governor of Idaho in 1897 as the Democratic-Populist fusion candidate. He served as Governor with labor union support, and the state's corporations increased their wages for workers out of fear that Steunenberg's government would support their laborers if they went on strike. Steunenberg betrayed his union supporters by calling in federal troops to suppress the Western Federation of Miners' violent riot against the Bunker Hill Mining Company in April 1899, and he was assassinated by former miner Harry Orchard in a bombing outside his house in Caldwell in 1902.