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, plus an increased military presence due to the Cold War with the neighboring Soviet Union had also brought the territory closer to the rest of North America. In 1955, the Alaska Legislature 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 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 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, 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 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 signed the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act, 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