Monrad Wallgren

Monrad Charles Wallgren (April 17, 1891 – September 18, 1961) was an American politician from the state of Washington. A member of the Democratic Party, Wallgren served as the 13th governor of Washington from 1945 to 1949; he also represented Washington in the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate.

Wallgren, of Swedish descent, was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1891. His family moved to Texas in 1894 and then to Everett, Washington, in 1901. He attended public schools and business college in Everett, graduating from the Washington State School of Optometry in Spokane in 1914. He worked in retail jewelry and optometry from 1915 to 1932, as well as serving in the Washington National Guard from 1917 to 1919 and from 1921 to 1922. He was an outstanding player of carom billiards.

In 1932, Wallgren ran for election to the United States House of Representatives as a Democrat. He defeated incumbent Republican Albert Johnson by a large margin in a year of strong Democratic performance, and took office on March 4, 1933. Wallgren was reelected in 1934, 1936, and 1938, each time by a wide margin. Wallgren did not run for reelection in 1940, instead running to represent the state in the United States Senate, to replace fellow Democrat Lewis B. Schwellenbach, who was retiring to accept a judicial nomination. Wallgren won the election, and was also appointed to finish the final weeks of Schwellenbach's term, taking office on December 19, 1940.

While Wallgren served portions of two different terms (the end of Schwellenbach's and the one that Wallgren was elected to), he served less than 6 years in the Senate. In 1944, he successfully ran for governor of Washington against incumbent Republican Arthur B. Langlie, resigning from the Senate to take office as governor on January 10, 1945. He ran for reelection as governor in 1948, but was defeated in a rematch against Langlie. Wallgren was then nominated by President Harry Truman as the chairman of the National Security Resources Board. That nomination was later withdrawn, and Wallgren served as chairman of the Federal Power Commission from 1949 to 1951. He then retired from public service.

In 1961, Wallgren died of complications resulting from a traffic accident.