Grant Sawyer

Infobox Governor
name= Grant Sawyer


caption=
order=21^st
office= Governor of Nevada
term_start=January 5, 1959
term_end=January 2, 1967
lieutenant=
predecessor=Charles H. Russell
successor=Paul Laxalt
birth_date=birth date|1918|12|14
birth_place=Twin Falls, Idaho
death_date=death date and age|1996|2|19|1918|12|14
death_place=Las Vegas, Nevada
spouse=Bette Norene Hoge
profession=Attorney
residence=Elko
party= Democratic
religion=Baptist
footnotes=

Frank Grant Sawyer (December 14, 1918 - February 19, 1996) was Governor of Nevada from 1959 to 1967. He was a Democrat.

Sawyer was born on December 14, 1918, in Twin Falls, Idaho. He was the son of two osteopaths, Doctors Harry W. and Buela Cameron Sawyer (and the youngest of three boys). He was raised near Twin Falls. Sawyer served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He attended Linfield College, the University of Nevada at Reno and The George Washington University Law School. He married Bette Norene Hoge Sawyer in 1946. He served as District Attorney for Elko County, Nevada from 1950 to 1958. Sawyer served as the governor of Nevada from 1959 and 1967. He was defeated in his attempt at a third term by Paul Laxalt. Following the end of his career in electoral politics, he was a co-founder the law firm of Lionel Sawyer & Collins, which soon grew into the largest law firm within the State of Nevada.

His progressive efforts in the area of race relations brought to an end of an unfortunate period in the history of Southern Nevada when the area was known as "The Mississippi of the West." He was responsible for the development of the modern casino regulatory system with the passage of the Gaming Control Act of 1959 and the formation of the Nevada Gaming Commission. Sawyer swam against the tide of history when he unsuccessfully fought to prevent corporate ownership over Nevada casinos.

Sawyer was the first western governor to endorse the fledgling presidential campaign of Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy in 1960.

Sawyer died on February 19, 1996, in Las Vegas from complications from a debilitating stroke suffered in 1993. His wife Bette died September 11, 2002. Both are buried at Palm Valley View Memorial Park in Las Vegas.

The following buildings are named for the former governor: The Grant Sawyer Building, a state office building, located at 555 East Washington Avenue, Las Vegas; Grant Sawyer Middle School, located at 5450 Redwood Street, Las Vegas.

Commentators have reflected on Sawyer's career as follows: Grant Sawyer served two turbulent terms as Nevada's governor from 1959 to 1966. Sawyer was an advocate of progressive change. By the late fifties he had come so far from his start in the conservative political machine of Senator Patrick McCarran that many powerful Nevadans considered his policies on education, the environment, and civil rights to be dangerously radical. When he demanded meaningful regulatory control over casino gaming and took decisive action to purge the industry of its mob connections, the establishment's resistance stiffened. Eventually, Sawyer's positions brought him into open conflict with special interests and led to a collision with the justice department of the federal government, but he never backed down.