Clair S. Tappaan

Clair S. Tappaan
Biographical details
Born	May 14, 1878; Baldwinsville, New York, U.S.
Died	November 30, 1932 (aged 54); Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Playing career
1898–1900	Cornell
Coaching career (HC unless noted)
1901	USC
Head coaching record
Overall	0–1

Clair Sprague Tappaan (May 14, 1878 – November 30, 1932) was an American

Superior Court and California Court of Appeal from 1927 until his death in 1932. Tappan played college football at Cornell University and served as the head football coach at the University of Southern California

(USC) for a one-game season in 1901.

Early life

Tappaan was born in Baldwinsville, New York, the son of Wallace Tappaan and his wife Frances (McMechan) Tappaan. He was educated at the Baldwinsville Free Academy, and enrolled at the University of Michigan, transferring after two years to Cornell University where he received his Bachelor of Laws degree in 1900. While at Cornell, he played on the football team.

Coaching career

Tappaan briefly practiced law in

USC football team, which played only one game – a 6-0 road loss to Pomona College. He joined the USC Law School's first faculty in 1904. During World War I, he worked in physical training with the YMCA

, with much of his work done in France.

Jurisprudence

In August 1927 he was appointed to the Superior Court by Governor

Doctor of Laws

degree.

Heritage

Tappaan suffered a fatal heart attack at age 54 while walking to his office in downtown Los Angeles, shortly after addressing a luncheon of the Los Angeles Bar Association. His death was ruled the result of chronic myocarditis and sclerosis of the left coronary artery. He was survived by his wife, the former Mary E. Darling, whom he married on May 12, 1906. Their only child Francis was an All-American for the USC football team in 1929. Tappaan was a longtime official of the Sierra Club, serving as its fifth president from 1922 to 1924, and on the board of directors from 1912 until his death.

At the time of Tappaan's death, Sierra Club members were organizing to build a ski lodge on

Sierra Nevada Mountains

of Northern California. One Lodge founder, Lewis Clark, said in about 1989 that they named the yet-unnamed lodge after Tappaan to use his popularity to help with fundraising.

The Lodge opened on Christmas Eve 1934, according to Lodge oldtimer Frank Shoemaker. Clair Tappaan Lodge is the Sierra Club's largest and most popular lodge, known among its many supporters as the Sierra Club's "flagship lodge".^[1] Tappaan's photo hangs in the entry.

References

^ "Sierra Club: Clair Tappaan Lodge". Archived from the original on 2010-05-29. Retrieved 2007-01-29.

Additional sources

"Judge Tappaan Dies Suddenly." Los Angeles Times, December 1, 1932. pp. 1, 5.
Rodman, Willoughby (1909). History of the Bench and Bar of Southern California, p. 240.

External links

Clair S. Tappaan at Find a Grave

[1] "Sierra Club: Clair Tappaan Lodge". Archived from the original on 2010-05-29. Retrieved 2007-01-29.

[1]