David William Davis (April 23, 1873 – August 5, 1959) was an American politician who served as the 12th governor of Idaho from 1919 to 1923. He later served briefly as commissioner of the United States Bureau of Reclamation in 1923 and 1925. He later became a special assistant to the U.S. secretary of the interior.
Early life
Davis was born in Cardiff, Wales. His family immigrated to the United States in 1875 and settled near Rippey, Iowa. Rippey, located 35 miles northwest of Des Moines, was then a major coal-mining community. This was before strict child labor laws, and Davis began working in the coal mines in 1885 when he was twelve years old.
Career
After a few years in the mines, Davis landed a job in the mining company store in Dawson, Iowa, about five miles south of Rippey. Personable and hard-working, Davis showed a talent for the retail business. That led to a position as the manager of a local Farmer's Cooperative Association. Almost immediately thereafter, he became cashier at a bank in Rippey. At that time, the Cashier in a small bank could be more than what is known simply as a Teller in the United States. A chief cashier was a very high-level position, able to issue cashier's checks against the bank's reserves. In view of his later career in banking, it seems likely that Davis attained that level of responsibility. It is known that, lacking much formal schooling, he also followed a program of diligent self-education.
Two months after Davis left the governor's office, he was appointed as a special assistant to the Secretary of the Interior, to supervise the United States Reclamation Service and served until 1924. He then served from 1924 to 1932 as director of finance for the Interior Department, and for a short time in 1931 as a special advisor to President Herbert Hoover.