United States Secretary of the Interior

United States Secretary of the Interior
Official Seal
Incumbent Ken Salazar since January 20, 2009
Formation	March 3, 1849
First holder	Thomas Ewing
Succession	Eighth
Website	www.doi.gov

The United States Secretary of the Interior is the head of the United States Department of the Interior.

The US Department of the Interior should not be confused with the concept of Ministries of the Interior as used in other countries. Ministries of the Interior correspond primarily to the Department of Homeland Security in the US cabinet and secondarily to the Department of Justice.

The Department of the Interior oversees such agencies as the Bureau of Land Management, the United States Geological Survey, and the National Park Service. The Secretary also serves on and appoints the private citizens on the National Park Foundation board. The Secretary is a member of the President's Cabinet.

Because the policies and activities of the Department of the Interior and many of its agencies have a substantial impact in the western United States, the Secretary of the Interior has typically come from a western state; only one of the individuals to hold the office since 1949 is not identified with a state lying west of the Mississippi River. The Secretary of the Interior is eighth in the United States presidential line of succession.

The current Secretary of the Interior in Barack Obama's administration is former Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado.

Secretaries of the Interior

Parties

      Whig       Democratic       Republican

Status

  Denotes acting Secretary of the Interior

No.	Portrait	Name	State of Residence	Took Office	Left Office	President(s)
1		Thomas Ewing	Ohio	March 8, 1849	July 22, 1850		Zachary Taylor
							Millard Fillmore
2		Thomas M. T. McKennan	Pennsylvania	August 15, 1850	August 26, 1850
3		Alexander H. H. Stuart	Virginia	September 14, 1850	March 7, 1853
4		Robert McClelland	Michigan	March 8, 1853	March 9, 1857		Franklin Pierce
5		Jacob Thompson	Mississippi	March 10, 1857	January 8, 1861		James Buchanan
6		Caleb Blood Smith	Indiana	March 5, 1861	December 31, 1862		Abraham Lincoln
7		John Palmer Usher	Indiana	January 1, 1863	May 15, 1865
							Andrew Johnson
8		James Harlan	Iowa	May 16, 1865	August 31, 1866
9		Orville Hickman Browning	Illinois	September 1, 1866	March 4, 1869
10		Jacob Dolson Cox	Ohio	March 5, 1869	October 31, 1870		Ulysses S. Grant
11		Columbus Delano	Ohio	November 1, 1870	September 30, 1875
12		Zachariah Chandler	Michigan	October 19, 1875	March 11, 1877
13		Carl Schurz	Missouri	March 12, 1877	March 7, 1881		Rutherford B. Hayes
14		Samuel J. Kirkwood	Iowa	March 8, 1881	April 17, 1882		James A. Garfield
							Chester A. Arthur
15		Henry M. Teller	Colorado	April 18, 1882	March 3, 1885
16		Lucius Q. C. Lamar	Mississippi	March 6, 1885	January 10, 1888		Grover Cleveland
17		William Freeman Vilas	Wisconsin	January 16, 1888	March 6, 1889
18		John Willock Noble	Missouri	March 7, 1889	March 6, 1893		Benjamin Harrison
19		M. Hoke Smith	Georgia	March 6, 1893	September 1, 1896		Grover Cleveland
20		David R. Francis	Missouri	September 3, 1896	March 5, 1897
21		Cornelius Newton Bliss	New York	March 6, 1897	February 19, 1899		William McKinley
22		Ethan A. Hitchcock	Alabama	February 20, 1899	March 4, 1907
							Theodore Roosevelt
23		James Rudolph Garfield	Ohio	March 5, 1907	March 5, 1909
24		Richard Achilles Ballinger	Washington	March 6, 1909	March 12, 1911		William Howard Taft
25		Walter L. Fisher	West Virginia	March 13, 1911	March 5, 1913
26		Franklin Knight Lane	California	March 6, 1913	February 29, 1920		Woodrow Wilson
-		Alexander T. Vogelsang	California	February 29, 1920	March 13, 1920
27		John Barton Payne	Illinois	March 15, 1920	March 4, 1921
28		Albert B. Fall	New Mexico	March 5, 1921	March 4, 1923		Warren G. Harding
29		Hubert Work	Colorado	March 5, 1923	July 24, 1928
							Calvin Coolidge
30		Roy Owen West	Illinois	July 25, 1928	March 4, 1929
31		Ray Lyman Wilbur	California	March 5, 1929	March 4, 1933		Herbert Hoover
32		Harold L. Ickes	Illinois	March 4, 1933	February 15, 1946		Franklin D. Roosevelt
							Harry S. Truman
-		Oscar L. Chapman	Colorado	February 15, 1946	March 18, 1946
33		Julius Albert Krug	Wisconsin	March 18, 1946	December 1, 1949
34		Oscar L. Chapman	Colorado	December 1, 1949	January 20, 1953
35		Douglas McKay	Oregon	January 21, 1953	April 15, 1956		Dwight D. Eisenhower
-		Clarence A. Davis	Nebraska	April 15, 1956	June 8, 1956
36		Fred Andrew Seaton	Nebraska	June 8, 1956	January 20, 1961
37		Stewart Udall	Arizona	January 21, 1961	January 20, 1969		John F. Kennedy
							Lyndon B. Johnson
38		Walter J. Hickel	Alaska	January 24, 1969	November 25, 1970		Richard Nixon
-		Fred J. Russell	California	November 25, 1970	January 29, 1971
39		Rogers Morton	Maryland	January 29, 1971	April 30, 1975
							Gerald Ford
-		D. Kent Frizzell	Kansas	April 30, 1975	June 12, 1975
40		Stanley K. Hathaway	Wyoming	June 12, 1975	October 9, 1975
-		D. Kent Frizzell	Kansas	October 9, 1975	October 17, 1975
41		Thomas S. Kleppe	North Dakota	October 17, 1975	January 20, 1977
-		Alfred G. Albert		January 20, 1977	January 23, 1977		Jimmy Carter
42		Cecil D. Andrus	Idaho	January 23, 1977	January 20, 1981
43		James G. Watt	Wyoming	January 23, 1981	November 8, 1983		Ronald Reagan
-		J. J. Simonds III	New Jersey	November 8, 1983	November 18, 1983
44		William P. Clark, Jr.	California	November 18, 1983	February 7, 1985
45		Donald P. Hodel	Oregon	February 8, 1985	January 20, 1989
-		Earl E. Gjelde	Virginia	January 20, 1989	February 3, 1989		George H. W. Bush
46		Manuel Lujan, Jr.	New Mexico	February 3, 1989	January 20, 1993
47		Bruce Babbitt	Arizona	January 22, 1993	January 2, 2001		Bill Clinton
-		Thomas N. Slonaker	Arizona	January 2, 2001	January 31, 2001
							George W. Bush
48		Gale Ann Norton	Colorado	January 31, 2001	March 31, 2006
-		Lynn Scarlett	California	April 1, 2006	May 26, 2006
49		Dirk Kempthorne	Idaho	May 29, 2006	January 19, 2009
-		Lynn Scarlett	California	January 19, 2009	January 21, 2009
							Barack Obama
50		Ken Salazar	Colorado	January 21, 2009	Incumbent

Living former Secretaries of the Interior

As of May 2010, eight former Secretaries of the Interior are alive. The most recent secretary to die was Walter Hickel (1969–1970), on 7 May 2010.

Name	Term of office	Date of birth
Cecil Andrus	1977–1981	(1931-08-25) August 25, 1931
James G. Watt	1981–1983	(1938-01-31) January 31, 1938
William P. Clark	1983–1985	(1931-10-23) October 23, 1931
Donald Hodel	1985–1989	(1935-05-23) May 23, 1935
Manuel Lujan	1989–1993	(1928-05-12) May 12, 1928
Bruce Babbitt	1993–2001	(1938-06-27) June 27, 1938
Gale Norton	2001–2006	(1954-03-11) March 11, 1954
Dirk Kempthorne	2006–2009	(1951-10-29) October 29, 1951

See also

• Living former members of the United States Cabinet

External links

• List of Secretaries of the Interior (DoI)
• List of Secretaries of the Interior (worldstatesmen.org)
• The Department of Everything Else: Highlights of Interior History (1989)

United States presidential line of succession
Preceded by Attorney General	8th in line	Succeeded by Secretary of Agriculture