Chase S. Osborn

Chase Osborn
Osborn from 1910 Michiganensian
27th Governor of Michigan
In office January 2, 1911 – January 1, 1913
Lieutenant	John Q. Ross
Preceded by	Fred M. Warner
Succeeded by	Woodbridge Nathan Ferris
Personal details
Born	January 22, 1860 Huntington County, Indiana
Died	April 11, 1949 (aged 89) Poulan, Georgia
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Lillian G. Jones Stellanova Brunt

Lillian G. Jones

Chase Salmon Osborn (January 22, 1860 – April 11, 1949) was an American politician, newspaper reporter and publisher, and explorer. He served as the 27th Governor of Michigan from 1911 to 1913. The governor spent time at Possum Poke in Georgia, using it as a retreat and a place to write. He eventually died there.

Osborn was born in a log house in Huntington County, Indiana to George A. Osborn and Margaret (Fannon) Osborn, who named him Chase Salmon after abolitionist Salmon Chase, who would become the next U.S. Secretary of the Treasury under Abraham Lincoln, and later Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He was educated at Purdue University, where he became a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity, yet left before graduating. From there he moved to Chicago, Illinois and briefly worked for the Chicago Tribune. On May 7, 1881, while a reporter for the Evening Wisconsin in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he married Lillian G. Jones. They moved north, near the Michigan border, to Florence, Wisconsin, where he ran a local newspaper and prospected for iron.

Osborn later moved to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan where he ran another newspaper, The Sault News, and also began his involvement in politics. In 1889, he was appointed Postmaster of Sault Ste. Marie and, in 1895, state Fish and Game Warden. In 1898, Governor Hazen S. Pingree appointed Osborn Commissioner of Railroads, a position in which he served from 1899 to 1903. After selling out his newspaper, he and Walter J. Hunsaker bought The Saginaw Courier Herald. In 1900, he was unsuccessful to win the Republican nomination for Governor of Michigan, losing to Aaron T. Bliss, who won the general election. In 1908, he served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention from Michigan to nominate William Howard Taft for U.S. President. That same year he became a member of the University of Michigan Board of Regents and served from 1908 to 1911.