It’s always election season, but we’re headed toward a general election. And 2026 marks the anniversary of some important elections in Nevada’s history and the country’s. We’ve elected a governor this fall, and a century ago, we had a campaign for governor that foreshadowed this one in some ways.
For one thing, the incumbent was seeking reelection. It was a Democrat, James Scrugham. Scrugham had been a professor at the university in Reno, and founding dean of its engineering college. He was close to Governor Emmet Boyle, who appointed him state engineer. In that job, Scrugham became involved in the preliminary discussions of building a dam on the Colorado River. When Boyle was finishing his second term, he supported Scrugham as his successor.
Scrugham’s term was a busy one. He was nicknamed “Gasoline Jimmy” and “The Governor on Wheels” because he loved to drive around Nevada and he so strongly supported highway construction to make those drives better. He talked the legislature into a two-cents-a-gallon fuel tax to support better roads, and delivered 769 miles of improved roads in the next year. He also wanted places to visit, so he called for setting aside areas for parks and recreation. The first was Valley of Fire, which was magnificent then and still is. That all led to the Nevada Division of State Parks. He also backed the creation of a national park designed around Lehman Caves in White Pine County—now a key part of the beautiful Great Basin National park.
And he supported archaeological research. He was excited by the discovery of Puebloan remains and artifacts at what became known as the Lost City. And that hurt him, because it gave his opponents the chance to say that they wanted to concentrate on Nevada’s live cities, not its dead ones.
His general election opponent also had amassed quite a record. Fred Balzar was a native Nevadan, born and raised in Virginia City. He worked in a variety of occupations, including mining but also railroading, insurance sales, and ranching. He had served in the assembly and state senate, then became sheriff and county assessor of Mineral County. That’s the job he held when he ran against Scrugham. He carried every county but Clark, Lincoln, White Pine, and Elko. He earned 53 percent of the vote—out of about 31,000 cast. It was a much smaller state.
Balzar went on to support and sign the bills creating the six-week divorce law and legalizing gambling. When he died of lung cancer in 1934, thousands attended his funeral. He was truly a popular figure in Nevada. And one other sheriff has been elected governor of Nevada. He’s in office now, Joe Lombardo, and he beat a one-term Democratic incumbent, Steve Sisolak.
As for Scrugham, he published newspapers in Reno and Las Vegas before winning five terms in the House and a term in the Senate before he died in 1945. That Senate election gave him an interesting distinction. One of the other Nevadans to be both a governor and U.S. senator was Tasker Oddie, who also was elected in 1926. The others were James Nye, Ted Carville, Paul Laxalt, and Richard Bryan.
