Southern Utah News Front Page: January 25, 2012

Utah Legislature to honor Kanab''s Historic All-Woman City Council

The all-woman Kanab mayor and city council of 1912-14 (left to right): Luella McAllister, treasurer; Blanche Hamblin, council woman; Mary Chamberlain, mayor; Tamar Hamblin, clerk; and Ada Seegmiller, council woman.

The State of Utah will officially commemorate one of its greatest — yet relatively unsung — contributions to the cause of women’s suffrage. On Friday, January 27, during Rural Utah Day at the State Legislature, lawmakers and even Governor Herbert himself will mark 100 years since the nation’s first all-woman mayor and city council.

In January 1912, eight years before women nationwide received the right to vote through the 19th Amendment, five women took office in the small town of Kanab, Utah. The Utah Legislature will honor the memory of Mary Chamberlain (Mayor), Luella McAllister, Vinnie Jepson (who resigned shortly after taking office), Tamar Hamblin, Blanche Hamblin and Ada Segmiller (who took Jepson’s place on the council). A joint citation will be read in both chambers of the Utah Legislature, followed by a proclamation by Gov. Gary Herbert.

“The Council served their community with foresight and economy, succeeding with numerous accomplishments,” the citation will read in part.

“They really were far-reaching in the things they did, and we really want to honor them,” said Kanab’s current mayor, also a woman, Nina Laycook.

Laycook and the current Kanab City Council declared 2012 a “year of celebration” to honor their ground-breaking foremothers.

The all-woman 1912 city council was elected as a joke. However, by the end of their two-year term, the women had become regarded as the most effective council the town had ever seen.

“Even without the issue of women’s suffrage, they would have done this even without regard to that, because it was about the community. There was a job to be done, and they still had to get the kids ready and the bread baked. I really admire them, I really do,” Laycook said.

Laycook and a few other ladies of Kanab have developed dramatic re-enactments of the all-woman council, based on histories and the council’s meeting minutes.

They anticipate performing a version of that re-enactment during their visit to the Legislature, perhaps at the state Capitol itself, and/or across the street at the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers’ Pioneer Memorial Museum.

The re-enactments will continue to be performed at other, significant and appropriate times during the year, such as the city’s 4th of July and Pioneer Day celebrations, and at Kanab’s own heritage festival in June, Jacob Hamblin Days.

Laycook says people are finally, 100 years later, beginning to learn the story and realize its significance. “There’s quite a buzz about it right now. If Oprah calls, we’ll be prepared,” she said.

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