Benjamin Franklin Heintzleman (3 December 1888-24 June 1965) was the Republican Governor of the Alaska Territory from 10 April 1953 to 4 January 1957, succeeding Ernest Gruening and preceding Waino Hendrickson.
Biography
Benjamin Franklin Heintzleman was born in Fayetteville, Pennsylvania in 1888, and he served in the Forest Service in Oregon and Washington, served as Assistant Regional Forester in Ketchikan, Alaska from 1918 to 1934, and served as Regional Forester for Alaska from 1937 to 1953, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed him to serve as Governor of the Alaska Territory. He supported economic development through revising homesteading, land laws, mineral leases, power licenses, and timber contracts, and he opposed Alaska Natives' land claims in favor of opening the land to development. He only supported statehood for the settled southern and southeastern portion of the territory while leaving the unsettled northern and western portions a territory, but this idea was so unpopular that there were calls for Heintzleman's replacement. He ultimately came to support statehood and signed the bill establishing the territory's constitutional convention, and he resigned in 1956 after 46 years of public service. He served on the University of Alaska Board of Regents from 1957 to 1959 and served as an advisor to the Alaska Rail and Highway Commission from 1959 to 1960. He died in Juneau in 1965.