By Lester "Budge" Ruffner

He died on Christmas Day, 1934, when the country was in the icy grip of both the depression and the Democrats. Governor of Arizona for seven terms during his career, this remarkable achievement earned him the sobriquet "George VII."

George Wylie Paul Hunt would have been a difficult client for the political image-makers of today. In all fairness, he could not be called either physically or intellectually attractive. Pumpkin-shaped and barely literate, his standard dress was a white linen suit, wool cap and high, black, laced shoes, winter and summer. With his bald head, thick, steel-rimmed glasses and walrus mustache, he looked like a primordial species emerging from the white foam of a ruffled sea. 

But looks sometimes deceive; George W. P. Hunt was the most consummate politician ever to appear on the Arizona scene. 

He came to Arizona in 1880 from Missouri, his entire wardrobe on his back and nine dollars in his pocket. Arriving in Globe with his few personal possessions packed on a burro, he took a job as waiter in a restaurant. He became a clerk in the Old Dominion Store of which he was later the president and major stockholder. His talent was recognized and his fortunes grew. He became the first mayor of Globe and the president of a local bank. Hunt married a local girl, Duett Ellison, the daughter of a prominent rancher. She was a cowgirl, a fine horsewoman and expert with pistol and rifle. Duett possessed great inner resources and shunned the society of political life. She happily spent her time on the ranch inherited from her father. 

George W. P. Hunt was elected president of the Arizona Constitutional Convention in 1910 and was the prime architect of the liberal constitution that included the recall of public officials. President William Howard Taft objected to the provision of recall of judges and refused statehood until that was deleted. Legalized gambling had already been surrendered to statehood. The art of compromise prevailed: recall of judges was eliminated from the constitution and reinstated when statehood was granted. At the time this shifty maneuver was legislated, an attempt was also made to reinstate legal gambling but this was stricken from the bill. Arizona's forefathers took a firmer grip on the courts than they did on the crap tables, a decision since regretted in some quarters of society. 

On December 12, 1911, Hunt defeated Prescott banker Edmund W. Wells, Republican, in the general election to become the first Governor of the State of Arizona. Hunt's hometown paper, The Globe Silver Bell, supported Wells and the Arizona Republican, as it was known then, frequently ran such comments as the following: 

"Two circuses are in town today, Ringling Brothers and G.W.P. Hunt. Both are complete with side shows." 

Hunt however, was the idol of the common man. He called the mines and corporations corrupt, accusing them of controlling territorial politics to the detriment of the people. He demanded a corporation commission that would not bow to what he termed "big interest." 

The terms "coyotes" and "skunks" were also included in his limited vocabulary when referring to railroads and mines. He advocated economy in government, wise regulation of business, better school facilities, free textbooks for public school children and was a political pioneer in the cause of road construction and Arizona's right to the water of the Colorado River. 

Hunt traveled to all parts of the state and had the gift of remembering names and faces. At his first inauguration on February 14, 1912, he walked the eight blocks from his hotel to the Capitol. Thereafter, he rode all over the state in a chauffeured state Cadillac, stopping at all the crossroads to talk to '"my peepul." As a child, I remember him when he was a guest in my home, and I sat fascinated as he scooped peas from his plate and placed them in his mouth with his dinner knife. An art I have always admired but never achieved. 

Toward the end of his fourth term, he was mentioned for a presidential appointment as the Minister to Siam, now Thailand. Friend and foe alike supported his appointment. His minimal duties as Minister to Siam left ample time that he used to send thousands of postcards to the "peepul" back home. A railroad fireman in Winslow, a boarding house operator in Bisbee, or a sheepherder in Munds Park, frequently announced to their friends that they had received a postcard from the U.S. Minister to Siam in the morning mail. 

When Governor Hunt left Siam, he returned via the Far East and Europe, stopping in Rome for a private audience with the Holy Father. Arriving in Phoenix, he had in possession two trunks full of tiny ivory white elephants he had purchased in Siam. These he personally presented to labor leaders, newspaper editors and key civic figures throughout the state. The following year he was elected governor by the largest majority in his career. 

His final resting place is both tasteless and appropriate. It is a mini-pyramid faced in bathroom tile, now defaced with 46 years of graffiti. It stands alone on a desert butte in Papago Park in Phoenix. In the distance is the copper dome of the Capitol Building and on the floor of what once was a desert, now stand the work places, homes and parks of "the peepul". 

From this vantage point "George VII" watches over Arizona. 



Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(po0742pb)
Reuse only by permission.
George W.P. Hunt, first Governor of the STATE of Arizona