Former Governor Dan Walker is Dead

Former governor Dan Walker, 92, has died, his son’s law office told the Chicago Sun-Times. He died overnight at his home in California.

Walker served from 1973 to 1977 as the state’s 36th governor, and lost in the 1976 Democratic primary to Secretary of State Michael Howlett, who in turn lost the governor’s race to Republican Jim Thompson.

In 1987, Walker would begin to serve a 17-month stint in federal prison for making $1.4 million in fraudulent bank loans to himself through First American Savings and Loan in Oak Brook where he he worked.

Born Aug. 6, 1922 in Washington, D.C., Walker grew up in San Diego. He graduated from Northwestern Law School in 1950 and the U.S. Naval Academy in 1945, serving during World War II and the Korean War. He was a law clerk for a U.S. Supreme Court justice and later an executive for Montgomery Ward.

He was appointed to lead a panel that investigated the violence between police and protesters at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, a role that raised his political profile. Known as the Walker Report, the investigation described the unrest as “a police riot.” In 1970, he chaired the U.S. Senate campaign of Adlai Stevenson III.

In 1971, he walked 1,197 miles across Illinois to kick off his bid to be governor and defeated Paul Simon in the Democratic primary. He narrowly defeated Republican incumbent Richard Ogilvie in the general election.

At one time, Walker aspired to run for president.

After leaving the governor’s office, he started a chain of oil-change shops which he later sold to Jiffy Lube. He then went into banking, buying two savings and loans.