William Allen Egan (October 8, 1914 – May 6, 1984) was an American
Democratic politician
A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking ...
. He served as the first
governor
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...
of the State of
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...
from January 3, 1959 to 1966 and 1970 to 1974, as well as a
shadow U.S. Senator from
Alaska Territory
The Territory of Alaska or Alaska Territory was an organized incorporated territory of the United States from August 24, 1912, until Alaska was granted statehood on January 3, 1959. The territory was previously Russian America, 1784–1867; the ...
from 1956-1959. Born in
Valdez, Alaska
Valdez ( ; Alutiiq: ) is a city in the Chugach Census Area in the U.S. state of Alaska. According to the 2020 US Census, the population of the city is 3,985, up from 3,976 in 2010. It is the third most populated city in Alaska's Unorganized Boro ...
, Egan is one of only two governors in the state's history (along with
Bill Walker) to have been born in Alaska. He was the Democratic nominee in the first five gubernatorial elections (
1958
Events
January
* January 1 – The European Economic Community (EEC) comes into being.
* January 3 – The West Indies Federation is formed.
* January 4
** Edmund Hillary's Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition completes the third ...
,
1962
Events January
* January 1 – Western Samoa becomes independent from New Zealand.
* January 3 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro for preaching communism.
* January 8 – Harmelen train disaster: 93 die in the wor ...
,
1966,
1970
Events
January
* January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC.
* January 5 – The 7.1 Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (''Extreme''). Between 10,000 and ...
, and
1974).
Early childhood and adulthood
The child of a
working-class mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic ...
family of six children in Valdez, Egan was raised by his mother, Cora (Allen), following his father William's death in an avalanche in 1920. By age 10, Egan was working in a local cannery, helping to support his struggling family. Thanks to the lack of driving laws in the
Alaska Territory
The Territory of Alaska or Alaska Territory was an organized incorporated territory of the United States from August 24, 1912, until Alaska was granted statehood on January 3, 1959. The territory was previously Russian America, 1784–1867; the ...
during the 1920s, Egan learned to drive at an early age, shuttling tourists around during summer months. By the age of 14, Egan was driving dump trucks for the
Alaska Road Commission
The Board of Road Commissioners for Alaska, more commonly known as the Alaska Road Commission or ARC, was created in 1905 as a board of the U.S. War Department. It was responsible for the construction and improvement of many important Alaska h ...
. Following his graduation as a
valedictorian
Valedictorian is an academic title for the highest-performing student of a graduating class of an academic institution.
The valedictorian is commonly determined by a numerical formula, generally an academic institution's grade point average (GPA ...
from Valdez High School in 1932, he began an interest in politics.
Egan's godfather,
Anthony Dimond, a local Valdez lawyer, two-time mayor and member of the
Alaska Senate, ran as a
Democrat for the territory's nonvoting delegate to the
U.S. House of Representatives the same year. Despite the position's inability to vote due to
Tennessee Plan, a nonvoting delegate could address other House members and lobby for both bills and statehood. Dimond won the race, introducing the young Egan, who viewed Dimond as his mentor, to territorial and federal politics. Dimond would send copies of the ''
Congressional Record'' back to Egan in Valdez for him to read.
Political career
Following on his godfather's footsteps, Egan ran successfully as the Democratic candidate from Valdez in the Alaska Territorial House of Representatives in 1940, a post he would hold until 1945. He won three more terms to the House from 1947 to 1953. On November 16, 1940,
Egan married
Desdia Neva McKittrick (October 3, 1914 – January 19, 2011), a recent arrival to Valdez from
Kansas
Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to th ...
. They had one child, a son,
Dennis. During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, where Alaska's own
Aleutian Islands
The Aleutian Islands (; ; ale, Unangam Tanangin,”Land of the Aleuts", possibly from Chukchi ''aliat'', "island"), also called the Aleut Islands or Aleutic Islands and known before 1867 as the Catherine Archipelago, are a chain of 14 large v ...
saw bloody combat between American and
Imperial Japanese
The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent forma ...
forces, Egan continued his political career. While still serving in the House of Representatives, Egan was elected as Mayor of Valdez in 1946. In 1953, Egan was elected to the Alaska Territorial Senate, and, in 1956, he was elected Territorial Shadow Senator, serving alongside
Ernest Gruening.
Alaska's Constitutional Convention
Following the end of the war, the Territory of Alaska's political and geographical isolation was coming to an end. The construction of the
Alaska Highway now linked the territory to the
Lower 48 states and
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, plus an increased military presence due to the Cold War with the neighboring
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
had also brought the territory closer to the rest of
North America.
In 1955, the
Alaska Legislature
The Alaska Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is a bicameral institution consisting of the 40-member Alaska House of Representatives (lower house) and the 20-member Alaska Senate (upper house). There are 40 Ho ...
ordered the creation of a constitutional convention to seek a state constitution suitable for Congressional approval. The convention met at the
University of Alaska Fairbanks
The University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF or Alaska) is a public land-grant research university in College, Alaska, a suburb of Fairbanks. It is the flagship campus of the University of Alaska system. UAF was established in 1917 and opened for c ...
campus in November. Territorial Senator Egan was chosen to lead the body in drafting a new state document. Following the end of the convention a year later, the
Alaska Constitution was sent to Alaskans as part of a referendum in 1958, passing easily. The statehood issue was turned over to the U.S. Congress later that year, passing by only one vote. President
Dwight Eisenhower signed the resulting
Alaska Statehood Act
The Alaska Statehood Act () was a statehood admission law, introduced by Delegate E.L. Bob Bartlett and signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on July 7, 1958, allowing Alaska to become the 49th U.S. state on January 3, 1959. The law was the ...
into law. Alaska was to become the 49th state.
Governorship
Alaska was scheduled to become a U.S. state on January 3, 1959. Egan decided to run to become Alaska's first state governor. He won the race, becoming governor upon the state's admission. During his first governorship, Egan supervised the transition of Alaska's territorial bureaucracy into a state government. Egan also encouraged investment in the newest U.S. state, noting its slowly growing oil and tourist industries. During the 1964
Good Friday earthquake
The 1964 Alaskan earthquake, also known as the Great Alaskan earthquake and Good Friday earthquake, occurred at 5:36 PM AKST on Good Friday, March 27. , which remains one of the strongest earthquakes of the modern era, Egan supervised and directed the state's response to the disaster.
Defeated for re-election in 1966, Egan was elected again in 1970, serving a third term until his final defeat in 1974. The discovery of oil at
Prudhoe Bay in 1968 and the
1973 Oil Crisis in response to the
Yom Kippur War
The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was an armed conflict fought from October 6 to 25, 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by E ...
played a large role in Egan's last term, as demand for oil increasingly played a role in the state's politics. In late 1973, President
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
signed the
Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act
The Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act of 1973 is a United States federal law signed by US President Richard Nixon on November 16, 1973, that authorized the building of an oil pipeline connecting the North Slope of Alaska to Port Valdez. Spe ...
, an act to reduce American dependence on OPEC oil. Many environmentalist politicians in the state bitterly opposed this federal legislation. Egan was defeated for re-election in 1974 by
Jay Hammond
Jay Sterner Hammond (July 21, 1922 – August 2, 2005) was an American politician of the Republican Party, who served as the fourth governor of Alaska from 1974 to 1982. Hammond was born in Troy, New York and served as a Marine Corps fighter pil ...
, in
one of 4 Republican gubernatorial flips that year.
Later life
Following Egan's departure from the governorship in 1974, Egan retired from public and political life. He died 10 years following leaving office on May 6, 1984 at the age of 69 from
lung cancer
Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from transformed, malign ...
.
[The Associated Press. "State tributes mount for Bill Egan, 69", Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. May 7, 1984. Page A1.] His son,
Dennis Egan, served as the mayor of Juneau, Alaska from 1995 to 2000, and as a state senator from 2009 to 2019.
Legacy
* Egan was awarded as "Alaskan of the Year" in 1971, and received an
honorary Doctor of Laws
A Doctor of Law is a degree in law. The application of the term varies from country to country and includes degrees such as the Doctor of Juridical Science (J.S.D. or S.J.D), Juris Doctor (J.D.), Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), and Legum Doctor ...
degree the following year from the
University of Alaska.
* October 8 is now William Egan Day in Alaska.
* The
William A. Egan Civic & Convention Center in
Anchorage is named in his honor.
*
Egan Drive in
Juneau is also named in his honor.
* Egan Drive in Valdez, Alaska
References
External links
*
William Eganat ''100 Years of Alaska's Legislature''
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Egan, William A.
1914 births
1984 deaths
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American politicians
Businesspeople from Anchorage, Alaska
Deaths from cancer in Alaska
Deaths from lung cancer
Delegates to Alaska's Constitutional Convention
Democratic Party governors of Alaska
Democratic Party United States senators from Alaska
Mayors of Valdez, Alaska
Members of the Alaska Territorial Legislature
Politicians from Anchorage, Alaska
Politicians from Juneau, Alaska
Speakers of the Alaska House of Representatives
Democratic Party members of the Alaska House of Representatives