(Bloomberg) -- Representative Don Young, an Alaska Republican and the longest-serving member of the House has died. He was 88.
He died while traveling back to Alaska, his office said in a statement Friday night, without providing a cause or other details. His wife, Anne, was with him at the time.
Young, first elected in 1973, was chairman of both the Natural Resources Committee and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. He cut a colorful and occasionally cantankerous figure in Washington. Visitors to his office were greeted by a giant bear hide.
He strongly supported the state’s oil industry, beginning with the Trans-Alaska Pipeline early in his career.
According to his congressional biography, he advocated for legislation to establish a 200-mile fishing limit to help Alaska’s fishing industry. He also “fought against federal control of lands and resources to which Alaskans are rightfully entitled,” according to the biography.
He pushed for massive infrastructure and development projects for his state – including the notorious “Bridge to Nowhere” in Ketchikan, Alaska, a nearly $400 million project that became a symbol of pork barrel spending that was ultimately blocked.
His longevity in the chamber was marked with a 2018 ceremony in which he became the chamber’s dean. Although he served nearly 50 years, John Dingell, a representative from Michigan who died in 2019, had the longest tenure in Congress -- 59 years.
Young was born in California. After serving in the Army and graduating from Chico State College, he arrived in Alaska about the time it became the 49th U.S. state, settling in Fort Yukon, a community near the Arctic Circle. He worked in various jobs, including construction, and taught school.
Young served as the mayor of Fort Yukon and was a member of the city council from 1960 to 1968. Later he became a member of the state House of Representatives, from 1966 to 1970, and the state Senate from 1970 to 1973.
Young ran for Congress in 1972, challenging incumbent Democrat Nick Begich. Weeks before the election, Begich and then-House Majority Leader Hale Boggs disappeared while on a campaign flight. Begich won re-election despite being presumed dead. Young won a March 1973 special election to succeed him.
He had two daughters with his first wife, Lu. She died in 2009.
Senator Lisa Murkowski, a fellow Alaska Republican, paid homage to Young on Twitter late Friday night.
“We have lost a giant who we loved dearly and who held Alaska in his heart—always,” she said in the tweet.
Leaders of both parties offered tributes.
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said “his decades of service have filled every room and touched every member,” according to a statement.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, said in a statement that “the photographs of him with 10 presidents of both parties who signed his bills into law that proudly cover the walls of his Rayburn office are a testament to his longevity and his legislative mastery.”
Young is the fourth member of the current Congress to die in office. Representative Jim Hagedorn, 59, a Minnesota Republican, died last month. The congressman had been diagnosed with kidney cancer and tested positive for Covid-19 in early January. Texas Republican Ron Wright died of Covid-19 in February 2021 and Alcee Hastings, a Florida Democrat, died of pancreatic cancer in April.
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