13 Facts About Roger Lapham

Roger Dearborn Lapham was a shipowner and businessman who served as the 32nd mayor of San Francisco from 1944 to 1948.

Roger Lapham was educated at Harvard, and a member of the Pacific Union Club.

In 1927, Roger Lapham was a founder of the Cypress Point golf course on the Monterey Peninsula.

Roger Lapham presided over the formation of one of San Francisco's perennial Charter Review Commissions and the consolidation of the private street railway systems into municipal ownership.

Roger Lapham was blamed for his plan of reducing the principal by spending the increased streetcar incomes during the war years and neglecting upkeep and maintenance of the rolling stock.

In 1945 Roger Lapham stood firm in the face of a strike threat by a group of city employees protesting the hiring of a Nisei man named Takeo Miyama who had been interned at the Tule Lake Relocation Center.

Roger Lapham was subject to the first recall attempt in city history due to his increasing of streetcar fares in July 1946.

Roger Lapham himself signed the recall petition and urged others to sign it to bring the issue to a vote.

Roger Lapham presided over the founding of the United Nations at the first meeting of the United Nations Conference on International Organization, in April 1945.

Roger Lapham encouraged the formation of the Council for Civic Unity and he appointed the first Asian to the Recreation Commission and the first African American to the Housing Authority.

On 30 October 1907, Lapham married Helen B Abbot in Brooklyn, New York.

Roger Lapham had two daughters, Carol Lapham Valentine and Edna Lapham Van Oosten.

Roger Lapham is a descendant of John Lapham and his wife Mary Russell Lapham.