Madera’s politics turned modern

For The Madera Tribune

John Gordon (far right) continued serving as Madera’s mayor in 1948.

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The year 1948 proved to be a watershed in Madera’s politics. Earlier city elections had been fairly tranquil. Over the previous 40 years, if an incumbent was challenged, the contest didn’t raise anybody’s blood pressure.

City elections in 1948, however, revealed that Madera had grown up. All of a sudden city leaders such Mayor John Gordon, Councilmen Arthur D. Cook, J. Wesley Smith, John McNally, and Irvine Schnoor seemed to take their politics more seriously.

Gordon had first been elected to the Madera City Council in 1925 and was named Mayor in that same year. His tenure as mayor notwithstanding, however, in 1948, Madera’s senior politician was Arthur D. Cook. He had been elected to the council in 1918.