Photographs of Arthur Langlie, approximately 1930-1959

If not for the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1909, Arthur Bernard Langlie (July 25, 1900 – July 24, 1966) probably would never have become governor of Washington. He was born in Minnesota to Scandinavian immigrants on August 25th, 1900. His family moved repeatedly throughout Minnesota and North Dakota during his early childhood. After a fire destroyed his parents’ hotel in 1909, they planned to try their luck in Montana. Bjarne Langlie, Arthur’s father, discovered that because of special rates encouraging visits to the Exposition, a rail ticket to Seattle cost no more than one to Montana. He decided to check out the prospects in the Puget Sound region instead, and as a result the family settled in Bremerton.

Arthur attended the University of Washington, eventually receiving a law degree. He practiced in Seattle, and by the mid-1930s became involved in municipal reform. He served as mayor from 1938 to 1940, and led the effort to rehabilitate the city after the Great Depression, restoring a sense of stability, efficiency, and business-as-usual, along with the more tangible benefits of federal aid. In 1940, he became the Republican gubernatorial nominee, and won thanks largely to a deeply divided Democratic party. Bruising battles with both the legislature and with other state offices characterized his term, and he lost his re-election bid to U.S. Senator Monrad C. Wallgren. Langlie ran against Wallgren again in 1948, and avenged his defeat. In the subsequent election he became the first Washington state governor to win a third term. In 1956, at the urging of President Eisenhower, Langlie challenged, unsuccessfully, Warren G. Magnuson’s seat in the Senate. After this defeat, he decided to return to private life even though Eisenhower offered him a number of prominent positions in the federal government. Until his retirement in 1964, Langlie served as president, and later board chairman, of McCall’s Corporation, and oversaw the rejuvenation of the publishing company. He died in Seattle, one day shy of his 66th birthday.