Judge, Boise Mayor, Developer and Attorney James H. Richards [otd 05/05]

Judge James Heber Richards was born May 5, 1852 in Mount Vernon, Ohio, about forty miles northeast of Columbus. One of eight siblings, James left home when he was fourteen years old to work on a dairy farm. Over the next few years, he pieced together more schooling and, around 1872, returned to Mount Vernon to teach. He continued there for most of the decade.

James H. Richards. [Illust-State]

Richards then moved to Colorado, where he read law, passed the bar, and ended up practicing in the mining town of Breckenridge. Then the boom there began to fade, so in the summer of 1890, James opened an office in Boise. He was there long enough to be on the city’s Board of Trade, but moved to Payette in late 1891. His first four years in Idaho were extremely busy. He invested in Boise Basin mining properties, helped found a bank in Payette, organized an irrigation project along the Payette River, and became president of a land development company.

Besides all that, when Canyon County was split off from Ada County in the fall of 1892, Richards was one of the commissioners who helped organize the new government.

However, in 1894, Richards was elected judge of the Third Judicial District. Finding the judicial docket hugely backlogged, he moved back to Boise to tackle the job. Handling well over four hundred cases, he managed to clear the calendar before the end of his two-year term.

Judge Richards was a strong supporter of women’s suffrage in Idaho. He and his wife Fannie organized and helped publicize the visit of a prominent women’s rights speaker in 1895. Those efforts succeeded the following year when voters overwhelmingly passed a women’s suffrage amendment [blog, November 3]. However, Richards’ practice had suffered during his time in office, so he refused to run for re-election. It took him three years of intense effort to put his private law affairs back in order.

Then backers persuaded him to run for Boise mayor in 1899, an office he won in a close election. Despite early budget problems, under Richards the city managed to get its facilities into tip-top shape, grade many streets that had been neglected before, and lay many blocks of new sidewalk. The mayor felt the volunteer fire brigade was doing a good job, but suggested that the city had grown enough to need a more professional approach. A paid part-time crew replaced the volunteers a year after he left office [blog, June 2].

Central Fire State, Boise, 1903. Boise Fire Department.

After his term as mayor ended in July 1901, Richards formed a law partnership with education advocate Oliver O. Haga [blog November 19]. James would remain active in that firm, as senior partner, for a quarter century. A couple months after that, the American Mining Congress was formed from parts of the International Mining Congress and Richards was selected as it first president. He held that office for seven or eight years, and then continued to give talks before that body for more than another decade.

Despite his many legal, business, and society activities (he was both a Mason and an Elk), Richards also served a 1905-1906 term in the state legislature. Again, he refused to run for re-election, as he would later turn down strong urgings to be a Republican candidate for governor.

Richards was active in his law firm until about 1926, when he was over seventy years old. He continued to be a popular speaker around the area for another five years or so. James passed away in early 1936 after a short illness.
                                                                                 

References: [French], [Hawley], [Illust-State]

“Breckenridge,” Rocky Mountain News, Denver (July 13, 1890).

“[James H. Richards News Items],” Idaho Statesman, Boise (June 1890 – January 1936).

Jennifer M. Ross-Nazzal, Winning the West for Women: The Life of Suffragist Emma Smith DeVoe, University of Washington Press, Seattle (2011).