When it comes to making history, women in southern Utah’s rustic Kane County have proven able over the years.
In the latest chapter that is sure to add to the Kanab area’s storied past, Republican Gwen Brown was sworn in as Kane County’s newest commissioner on Jan. 6, an occasion that has turned heads and raised some eyebrows.
Turns out, Brown’s service alongside Commissioners Celeste Meyeres and Patty Kubeja may be one for the history books.
“As near as I can determine, it is the first time [in Utah] that three women have been elected and served on an all-female county commission,” said Utah author and historian Ron Fox.
As interesting as that historical tidbit is, Brown said she is too focused on getting up to speed on the commission to give the matter much thought.
“But it is exciting to be the first in Utah, if that is what we are,” said Brown, a retired Postal Service worker who defeated GOP incumbent Wade Heaton in the June primary and ran unopposed in the November general election.
A nod to history
Ditto for Meyeres and Kubeja, who are midway through their first term. Still, as reluctant as all three are to crow about their status, they are not reticent about giving a nod to history. After all, they may be the state’s first all-female county commission, but they are the second all-female government entity in Kane County history.
Emily Bentley, director of Kanab municipal museums, said top honors in that category belong to the five women who were elected in November 1911 to serve a two-year term on the Kanab Town Council: Mary Chamberlain, Blanche Hamblin, Vinnie Jepson (who was soon replaced by Ada Seegmiller), Tamar Hamblin and Luella McAllister.
“These women did not actively seek the distinction of running for office … ‚” Bentley said, referring to Chamberlain’s account of the election in her autobiography, “Mary E. Woolley Chamberlain: Handmaiden of the Lord.” “Mary herself would write, ‘Our election was intended as a joke and no one thought seriously of it at the time … no one seemed interested in the supervision of the town, so the [male] loafers on the ditch bank (of which there were always plenty) proceeded to make up the above ticket as a burlesque, but there was no other ticket in opposition, so, of course, we were elected.’”
Ultimately, Bentley added, the joke was on the men. When the women found out about the election, they were not excited about serving on the commission. She said Hamblin remarked that all the election winners were “mothers of families—not ladies of leisure who needed politics for a hobby.”
Even though the election was intended as a joke, the fivesome took it seriously and opted to serve as trustees (council members) for the 1912-1913 term. In presiding over the council, Chamberlain became Utah’s first and the nation’s fourth female mayor.
Serving inside and outside the home was not easy.
“Each of the five women was married and raising young children, 36 in total,” Kylie Nielson Turley wrote in a article for Utahwomenshistory.org. “Three of those children were born during their mothers’ term in office. Two of the women worked outside of the home: Mary Chamberlain as a clerk in Kanab’s mercantile store and Tamar Hamblin as a ‘practical’ nurse.”
Sabbath-breaking, dice games and demon liquor
Despite their heavy responsibilities, and grousing from some men in town, the council platted Kanab’s cemetery, regulated traveling “peddlers,” reined in stray pets and livestock, imposed a leash law for dogs, and outlawed slingshots within city limits, according to Turley.
The women, Turley added, also cracked down on sabbath violations and gambling, making it illegal to indulge in ballgames, footraces and “noisy outdoor entertainment” on Sundays and criminalizing card and dice games, horseshoes and other games of chance.
“The women also felt alcohol was a ‘terror to our town’ and attacked ‘the liquor evil’ in a five-page ordinance,” Turley wrote.
When Kanab men balked at paying a $1.50 fine for stray cows, according to Turley, the women hired a “big, brave, courageous” city marshal to enforce the law. Alas, the man could not take the incessant teasing about being “under a petticoat government.”
Wrote Turley: “Finding a man who did not resign after becoming ‘the town joke’ was impossible: the women hired seven different marshals during their short term and were forced to ‘skimp and save from every other avenue of expenditure’ so they could offer an ‘enormous salary’ to entice someone to take the job.”
Changing times, different challenges
More than a century later, times have changed. Sexism, Kane County commissioners attest, isn’t as much of a problem as it used to be. Even if it was, they know how to deal with it. Kubeja, for example, is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who deployed to the Middle East in Desert Storm and is used to giving orders.
For her part, Meyeres is no political neophyte, having served on Kanab’s municipal council and planning commission before taking up her county commissioner chores. Neither is Brown, who was a member of the Kane County Planning Commission for four years.
Moreover, instead of enduring chauvinist slings and arrows, sidelining slingshots and corralling stray dogs and livestock, the women on the Kane County Commission say they are now tasked with managing growth, reining in taxes and bolstering tourism, just to name a few.
Asked if an all-female commission might bring a different mindset and skills to meeting those challenges, Meyeres said she doesn’t know but is anxious to find out.
“I’m interested in having the best communication we possibly can and working together as a team,” Meyeres said. “Patty and I have done a good job of setting that up, and Gwen has been great to work with so far.”
Kane County’s all-female commission reflects the fact that more women are serving in government leadership positions. Between 2020 and 2024, women holding leadership jobs in municipal government rose from 29.1% to 29.8%, according to the Utah State University Utah Women & Leadership Project. That’s significantly lower than the 45.7% and 41.4% of female leaders in county and state governments, respectively.
“Being a politician isn’t for everybody,” Kubeja said. “But we have reached the point that if women want to run for office, the opportunities will be there – even in little ol’ Kane County.”
