Walter K. Granger Collection

Walter K. Granger was born 11 October 1888 in St. George, Utah, to Walter Granger and his second wife, Anna Keil. At the time of Walter's birth, his father was serving at the Utah Penitentiary for "unlawful cohabitation." He was raised after age five by his father and his half-sister, Catherine Granger Bell, in Enoch, Utah. After his father's death in 1904, he supported himself by herding sheep. He attended high school at the Branch Normal School in Cedar City, Utah, where he was an athlete, amateur actor, and a scholar. He served a LDS mission in Georgia, returning in the fall of 1911 and married Hazel Dalley on 6 June 1912. He was appointed postmaster in Cedar City in 1914. In 1921 he served with the U.S. Marine Corps during World War I. As a Democrat, he lost his postmaster position when Republican Warren G. Harding was elected U.S. President in the fall of 1920. Hazel taught school and Walter ran an eighty-acre farm. In 1923, Granger was elected mayor of Cedar City, serving a two-year term, 1924-25. In 1926, he was called as LDS Bishop of the new Cedar City Third Ward. He was again elected mayor in 1929, serving a four-year term 1930-33. He was elected in 1933 to the Utah legislature, serving for three terms, and was Speaker of the House in 1935-36, where he was responsible for the Granger Revenue Bond Act which allowed cities to issue bonds for municipal projects that put men to work during the Depression. In 1940, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Utah's First Congressional District and re-elected for five terms even though his home community was a strong Republican city. Granger was appointed to the Federal Appeals Board by the U.S. Forest Service in 1966. Walter died 21 April 1978, at age 89, in Cedar City, UT. For further information see Hazel Dalley Granger, The Grangers: Walter K. and Hazel D., Their Life and Times.