California State Officials Biographies 1911

SYLVESTER CLARK SMITH

Submitted by Nancy Pratt Melton

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REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
Eighth District
Counties: Imperial, Inyo, Kern, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, 
San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tulare, and Ventura (11 counties). Population 
(1910) 346,691

SYLVESTER CLARK SMITH (Republican), of Bakersfield, was born on a farm near 
Mount Pleasant, Iowa, August 26, 1858; was educated in the district school and 
at Howe's Academy, Mount Pleasant; moved to California in the fall of 1879; 
farmed and taught school in Colusa County, and in 1883 went to Kern County to 
teach; while teaching he was studying law, and in 1885 was admitted to practice 
and located at Bakersfield, California, where he still resides. In 1886 a number 
of farmers bought a newspaper plant with which to establish a paper to represent 
their views on a question of water right, which was then engrossing their 
attention, and Mr. Smith was employed to edit the paper--the Kern County Echo; 
three years later he bought the paper and continued to edit it till 1897, when 
he returned to his law practice; is still the principal owner of the paper, now 
a morning daily, and does occasional editorial writing for it. He was elected to 
the State Senate in 1894 and again in 1898, serving eight years; was elected to 
the Fifty-ninth, Sixtieth, and Sixty-first Congresses, and reelected to the 
Sixty-second Congress, receiving 28,202 votes, to 18,958 for W. E. Irving 
(Democrat). 

Source: California Blue Book, or State Roster, 1911
Compiled by Frank C. Jordan, Secretary of State
Friend W. Richardson, Superintendent of State Printing, Sacramento, CA, 1913