President William Howard Taft Appoints the Final Governor of the District of Alaska, Who Would Then Become Its First Territorial Governor

Russia offered to sell Alaska to the United States in 1859, believing the United States would off-set the designs of Russia’s greatest rival in the Pacific, Great Britain. The looming U.S. Civil War delayed the sale, but after the war, Secretary of State William H. Seward quickly took up a renewed Russian offer, and agreed to a proposal from Russian Minister in Washington, Edouard de Stoeckl, to purchase Alaska for $7.2 million. The treaty was signed on March 30, 1867. Reactions to the purchase in the United States were mostly positive, but decidedly mixed, with some opponents calling it “Seward’s Folly”, and many others praising the move for weakening both the UK and Russia as rivals to American commercial expansion in the Pacific region.

The U.S. Senate approved the treaty of purchase on April 9, and President Andrew Johnson signed it on May 28. Alaska was formally transferred to the United States on October 18, 1867.

On May 17, 1884, the Department of Alaska was redesignated the District of Alaska, an incorporated but unorganized territory with a civil government. The governor would now be appointed by the president of the United States.

The final District Governor of the District of Alaska was Walter Clark, who would stay on after Alaska became a territory, so he was also the first Governor of the Territory of Alaska.

Document signed by Taft, May 20, 1909, appointing Walter E. Clark of Connecticut Governor of Alaska from October 1, 1909.

In 1912, Taft signed into law the Second Organic Act, officially transforming Alaska from a federally controlled district into an organized U.S. territory with its own elected legislature and limited self-government.