Frank Hamilton Short

Who was Frank Hamilton Short?

Frank Hamilton Short was a Fresno, California lawyer and a states' rights advocate within the early American Conservation movement.

Soon after Short's birth in Shelby County, Missouri, his father died from drinking poisoned water while engaged in the American Civil War. Short and his mother moved to Fresno, California in 1881. After a brief stint as a school teacher in Ahwanee, California, Short was, at age 22, elected justice of the peace in Fresno County.

Admitted to the bar in 1887, Short became an accomplished trial lawyer. Later, he changed his practice to represent companies in the oil, water, and natural resources industries. Short was involved in the California Bar Association, a voluntary organization that predated the mandatory State Bar of California that was established in 1927. He was president of the statewide organization in 1918. He also had been president of the Fresno County Bar Association in 1899, 1912, and 1913.

In 1899, Governor Henry Gage appointed Short to the State Board of Commissioners for the preservation of Yosemite Valley. Short was an avid hiker and explorer of the Sierra Nevada.