It was a cold, clear morning in Juneau on that historic winter day as Governor-elect William A. Egan waited inside the state Capitol for word from Washington, D.C., that President Dwight D. Eisenhower had signed the proclamation formally admitting Alaska as the 49th state of the union. At 9:18 a.m., about 15 minutes after the president had signed the proclamation in the White House Cabinet room with media and Alaska representatives looking on, Egan strolled into the governor's office alongside his wife, Neva, and son, Dennis, and took the oath of office as the state's first governor.

Although only 11 years old at the time, Dennis Egan recalls Jan. 3, 1959, as being a day when it didn't matter if you were a Democrat or a Republican in Alaska.

"There wasn't R and D that day, on the third," he said. "There wasn't anything to do with partisan politics that day. It was a sense of achievement. It was unbelievable, and I was a kid."

Shortly after Egan was sworn in, Secretary of State Hugh J. Wade took his oath of office.

As word of Eisenhower's action spread throughout the capital, a crowd began to assemble at the 20th Century Theatre in downtown Juneau in observance of the occasion. The Daily Alaska Empire reported that a standing-room-only crowd of more than a thousand people had gathered by 11 a.m., as the new governor made his first public appearance along with Wade and other local dignitaries to a standing ovation.

"There were people crying, you know, the sense of accomplishment was just unbelievable," Dennis Egan recalls. "It was a real surreal event and everybody got along at the time. There was no political party that whole weekend - it was a big party."

In his first remarks as governor, Egan proclaimed that Alaska's "apprenticeship" was over and celebrated the state as the newest member of the union nearly 100 years after the United States had purchased it from Russia.

The governor only made a brief appearance at the theater that day before he was rushed to a local hospital. Egan was medevaced to Seattle where he would undergo gall bladder surgery within days, having Wade take over executive duties in the first days and weeks of the new state.

Although Jan. 3, 1959, marks Alaska's formal admission to the union, the events of that day were mainly to mark the official transition after years of important milestones on the road to statehood, said Claus-M. Naske, an Alaska statehood scholar and professor emeritus of history at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

"The big battle was to get statehood," he said. "A whole bunch of people were involved in that."

The fight for statehood really began in the early part of the 20th century, Naske said, with multiple legislation attempts failing to gain ground in Congress. World War II was when the U.S. Department of the Interior really began taking Alaska's statehood seriously, he said.

Between the mid-1940s and the mid-1950s, several statehood bills had been introduced to Congress but failed to gain support. During a 2008 interview, Vic Fischer, a delegate to the Alaska Constitutional Convention and former territorial and state legislator, said people in the Last Frontier began to grow impatient with the bureaucracy in Washington, D.C.

"It was horrendously frustrating, and people were incensed," he said. "By the mid-50s it was time for the constitutional convention. Congress wasn't acting so ... the citizens movement felt we had to do something more."

In a 2008 interview, John B. Coghill, a delegate to the convention, former legislator and lieutenant governor, said the citizens of Alaska had grown tired of not having the final say with what was happening in the territory and always having to look to Washington, D.C., for guidance.

"People had lots of different reasons coming into the fight for statehood," Fischer said. "Some wanted to have greater control of our resources. They didn't want federal controls and regulations over trade, resource exploration. Some just believed in that we're entitled to democratic rights. Alaska was acquired from Russia back in 1867, and even then there was an implied promise of eventual statehood."

Fifty-five delegates from around the state were elected to convene in Fairbanks over the winter of 1955-56 for 75 days to draft a document that would become Alaska's state constitution.

"I would say that most of us really considered that we were engaged in a very, very important undertaking," Fischer said. "And the initial approach was this - to get statehood. But once the delegates got seriously into the constitution, it was the best possible constitution for the future state of Alaska."

He said the 55 delegates, individually and collectively, undertook to create the best possible document they could.

"It was a dream," Coghill said. "I wasn't a starry-eyed advocate of statehood - I was a starry-eyed advocate that we needed to have more freedom under the United States Constitution."

The convention adjourned in early February of 1956, and a ratification election was held on April 24, passing by a nearly 2-to-1 margin with a vote of 17,447 to 8,180. The election also approved the Alaska-Tennessee Plan that would send a delegation to Washington, D.C., to lobby full time for statehood. In October of 1956, voters nominated Democrats Ralph J. Rivers to the House and Egan and Ernest Gruening to the Senate, where they would spend the next couple of years working to get the Alaska Statehood Act to the desk of President Eisenhower.

The final push for statehood

Naske said the final push for statehood was difficult and tenuous up until legislation again came before Congress in 1958.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor of the Alaska Statehood Act by a vote of 210 to 166 on May 28, 1958. Naske said the real push came with getting the bill through the Senate, but he said that became more of a reality after Sen. Henry Jackson, floor manager for the Alaska Statehood Act, agreed to bring the House bill before the Senate.

The Alaska Statehood Act passed the Senate on June 30, 1958, the sixth day of debate, after fending off the opposition of a determined group of senators, primarily from the South, who didn't feel Alaska was ready for statehood because of the size of its population and what they believed would be an economic burden on the country, The Associated Press reported 50 years ago.

When the U.S. Senate voted 64 to 20 in favor of Alaska statehood on June 30, 1958, Delegate to Congress E.L. "Bob" Bartlett called it the greatest day in Alaska history.

"This is a great day," he was quoted saying in The Daily Alaska Empire. "This is the greatest day in Alaska history. The Congress has acted wisely and in the national interest. We in Alaska will justify what has been done this day."

On Monday, July 7, 1958, President Eisenhower signed the bill into law.

"The big celebration came when the Senate voted because that meant Congress had approved it," Fischer said.

It was reported that more than 2,000 people gathered at the subport in downtown Juneau the evening of June 30 for a "giant bonfire." "The Alaska Flag Song" and "The Star Spangled Banner" were both sung prior to a 30-minute fireworks display.

Gruening, former territorial governor and one of Alaska's first two senators elected to Congress, said on June 30, 1958, that the action taken by the Senate was a historic occasion.

Alaska voters overwhelmingly approved the statehood act in the Aug. 26, 1958, primary election, and several months later, during the general election, the Democrats swept all the statewide seats. Egan was elected governor, Wade secretary of state (which later became the lieutenant governor position), Rivers to the House, and Gruening and Bartlett as Alaska's first U.S. senators.

By Jan. 3, 1959, all the pieces of the puzzle had been put in place, and Alaska was ready to take its place as the 49th state in the union.

The 49th state

Political scientist and author Clive Thomas said that, overall, statehood has been a good thing for Alaska.

"For Alaska, it's been very beneficial," he said. "They got rid of the governor who was appointed by the president. They got a governor they can elect. They got a legislature they can elect, but they still get federal money like crazy."

One of the main points of contention of Alaska becoming a state was whether or not it could be self-sustaining, Thomas said. Fifty years after entering the union, the state is still having difficulty addressing the problem, he said.

"Alaska is as dependent upon government as it was in 1959," Thomas said. "It's as dependent on federal money as it was in 1959, more so in fact. I guess there's some infrastructure that's been developed, but I mean, it has not gotten any closer to dealing with its problems as it was in 1959."

Citizens of Alaska continue to want federal assistance but they continue to want to pay low taxes, he said.

Naske agreed, saying that statehood was a good idea for Alaska but that it has not carried through with all of its responsibilities in the first 50 years.

"We're still shucking our responsibilities in so many areas of public life," he said. "Alaskans never wanted to pay taxes, and that continues today."

In retrospect, you can say that it was inevitable that Alaska would become a state, Naske said. During the fight for statehood, however, nothing seemed inevitable, he added.

"Statehood is great," Naske said. "What future would we have had as a territory? ... From '44 really until '58, 14 years, really, isn't that long of a period. But if you're struggling for it and fighting for it every day, it seems like forever."