William Casey Marland (26 March 1918-26 November 1965) was the Democratic Governor of West Virginia from 19 January 1953 to 14 January 1957, succeeding Okey Patteson and preceding Cecil H. Underwood.
Biography[]
William Casey Marland was born in Johnston City, Illinois in 1918, the son of a mining boss. He was raised in Glen Rogers, West Virginia and served in the US Navy during the Pacific War, after which he became a law clerk. Marland served as state Attorney General from 1949 to 1952 and as Governor from 1953 to 1957, and he attempted to tax companies that depleted the state's resources and oversaw school desegregation amid the Civil Rights movement. He failed in his 1956 and 1958 bids for the US Senate, causing him to fall into alcoholism; he held his ambition in check by working as a taxi driver in Chicago, enabling his recovery, though not without negative publicity on his story's exposition in 1965. He died in Barrington, Illinois in 1965.