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Former state legislator Dan Boatwrightmay have grown up in a hardscrabble part of Arkansas, but his heart was always in Contra Costa County.

Mr. Boatwright, who represented the county in the Legislature for 24 years, died Friday at his home in Clayton. He was 82.

“There’s probably not a city in the county that doesn’t have a marina or pier or park or piece of public infrastructure that Dan Boatwright didn’t get them,” said Barry Brokaw, who was Mr. Boatwright’s chief of staff in the Legislature and then worked with him in Brokaw’s lobbying firm, Sacramento Advocates, where Mr. Boatwright was general counsel until his retirement in 2010.

“He was committed to public service and was pretty good at it,” Brokaw said.

Mr. Boatwright, the son of sharecroppers, was born Jan. 30, 1930, in Harrison, Ark. His family moved to Vallejo when he was 8, but he returned to Arkansas for high school. He served in the Army and was a combat infantryman during the Korean War.

After attending UC Berkeley and Boalt Hall School of Law, he was a deputy district attorney in Contra Costa County.

Mr. Boatwright’s political career began in 1966when he was elected to the Concord City Council, serving as mayor before being elected to the state Assembly in 1972. He moved to the state Senate in 1980 and served there for 16 years.

A moderate Democrat, Mr. Boatwright specialized in the state’s financial matters, chairing both the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Assembly Ways and Means Committee.

But Mr. Boatwright was proudest of his successful efforts to make California the first state in the nation to require protocols for dealing with sudden infant death syndrome.

In a statement, Gov. Jerry Brown called Mr. Boatwright “a very good representative of Contra Costa County. I enjoyed his friendship and I will miss him.”

Mr. Boatwright is survived by his wife, Teresa, three sons and five grandchildren.

Visitation is set for Friday from 6 to 9 p.m. at Ouimet Bros. Funeral Chapel, 4125 Clayton Road, Concord. Services will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Church of Christ, 1865 Arnold Drive, Martinez.