William Allen Egan (8 October 1914-6 May 1984) was the Democratic Governor of Alaska from 3 January 1959 to 5 December 1966 (succeeding Waino Hendrickson and preceding Wally Hickel) and from 7 December 1970 to 2 December 1974 (succeeding Keith Harvey Miller and preceding Jay Hammond).
Biography[]
William Allen Egan was born in Valdez, Alaska in 1914, and he learned to drive as a child, working as a dump truck driver by the age of 14. He served in the Territorial House of Representatives from 1940 to 1945 and from 1947 to 1953 was elected to the Territorial Senate in 1953, after which he was chosen to lead the constitutional convention in drafting Alaska's state constitution. He served as Alaska's first state governor from 1959 to 1966, encouraging investment in the newest American state and transforming the territorial bureaucracy into a state government. He was defeated for re-election in 1966, but he returned to the governorship from 1970 to 1974. He died in Anchorage in 1984 at the age of 69.