C. H. Rutherford

Charles Hays Rutherford was an American lawyer and politician from Arizona who served in the Arizona State Senate from 1917 through 1918, during the

Early life

Rutherford was born in

He relocated to Prescott, Arizona in 1906, where he set up a law practice.^[5] Later in 1906 he had moved to Jerome, where he was appointed city attorney, a position he held for the next fifteen years. He was a large shareholder of and served as a director on the board of the Lloyd Consolidated Copper Company, which had extensive workings near Camp Verde. In 1907 a new townsite was set up near their mining operations, including a post office, and was named Rutherford, Arizona, after him.^[3][9][10] He was married to Erie Dykes on November 8, 1909, in King County, Washington.

Political career

In 1911 he ran for the Democrat's nomination for one of the two state senate seats from

In 1934 he again ran for the Democrat's nomination for U.S. Senate against incumbent Ashurst.[3] In addition to Ashurst, there were three other candidates. Rutherford finished a distant fifth in the field of five.^[27] In 1944 he ran for mayor of Phoenix,^[28] however he and his entire ticket were defeated by incumbent mayor, J. R. Fleming and his ticket.^[29]

Life outside politics

In 1912 Rutherford invented a device to replace women's hatpins. It was a band which went inside the hat and had a small hook which kept the hat attached to the woman's hair.^[30] He came up with the idea after reading an article about a man who lost an eye while traveling on a streetcar and getting poked with a woman's hat pin. He incorporated the National Hat Fastener Co., with its headquarters in Phoenix, and contracted with a factory in Leominster, Massachusetts to manufacture the device.^[31][32] In 1918 Rutherford was one of the national spokesmen for the government's liberty bond drive, to support the U. S. war effort during World War I.^[33] He traveled the country aboard the "trophy train", giving speeches in support of buying the bonds.^[34] In 1921 he was elected president of the Yavapai County Bar Association.^[35] He had also served as a vice-president in the American Bar Association.^[2]

Rutherford was a

In 1930 he was appointed as Arizona's civilian aide to the Secretary of War.[41] One of his major responsibilities was overseeing the military training of civilians at Camp Stephen D. Little near Nogales.^[42] In 1933 the training was moved to Camp Huachuca.^[43] He was re-appointed in 1934,^[44] and was re-appointed every four years through 1950.^[45]

In 1938 he invented and patented a method for saving fruit from heavy frost, which became extensively used.^[46][47] In 1940 he was added to the 1940-41 edition of Who's Who In America.^[47] In June 1940 he was appointed to head the civil aeronautics training program in Arizona.^[48] In February 1949, Rutherford was disbarred by the Arizona Supreme Court in a unanimous 5-0 decision. The case involved Rutherford soliciting clients to seek settlements with the state industrial commission.^[49][50] He died on November 27, 1950, in Phoenix, and was buried in Greenwood Memory Lawn Cemetery.

References