James Jackson McAlester (October 1, 1842 – September 21, 1920) was an American coal baron and politician active in Indian Territory and later Oklahoma. He served as a United States Marshal for Indian Territory from 1893 to 1897, one of three members of the first Oklahoma Corporation Commission from 1907 to 1911, and as the second lieutenant governor of Oklahoma from 1911 to 1915.

McAlester was born in Arkansas in 1842, and enlisted in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. After the war, he received a detailed survey of coal deposits within the Choctaw Nation in Indian Territory and traveled there to work as a trader. He later married Rebecca Burney, sister of Chickasaw Governor Benjamin Burney, which granted him citizenship in the Chickasaw Nation and Choctaw Nation. He used his tribal citizenship to claim lands that contained valuable coal deposits, allowing him to become incredibly wealthy and influential in the territory.

He owned a general store in an area that eventually grew into the town of McAlester, Oklahoma, named after J. J., and he owned substantial interests in coal mining operation in the area, leading him into conflict with the Choctaw Nation's government. Chief Coleman Cole ordered McAlester's execution for violating tribal law preventing the sale of "part of the land" during his tenure, but McAlester was able to escape his sentence and resumed his activities after Cole's term. He built the McAlester House, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

In the lead up to Oklahoma statehood McAlester was elected to the first Oklahoma Corporation Commission and in 1910 he was elected lieutenant governor of Oklahoma and he served until 1915. He died in 1920.

McAlester was born in Sebastian County, Arkansas, on October 1, 1842, and grew up in Ft. Smith, Arkansas. He joined the Confederate States Army at the start of the war and reached the rank of captain. He fought at the Battle of Pea Ridge. After the defeat of the Confederacy he returned to Ft. Smith where he met engineer Oliver Weldon who gave him details of the location of coal deposits in Indian Territory (near now-McAlester, Oklahoma). In 1866 he moved to the Choctaw Nation and worked for the trading companies "Harlan and Rooks" and "Reynolds and Hannaford," before buying out the later.

On August 22, 1872, he married Rebecca Burney (born 1841 in Mississippi - died May 5, 1919, in Oklahoma) a member of the Chickasaw Nation and they had five children. Burney was the sister of Chickasaw Governor Benjamin Burney. This made it possible for him to gain citizenship in and the right to own property in both the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations.

By 1870, McAlester was running his own business at the "Crossroads" in Indian Territory, which later became McAlester, Oklahoma. He sold everyday goods and tools, and provided a stable supply of imported manufactured goods to Choctaw people in the area. He lobbied Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad to bring the railroad through the Crossroads with trains first arriving in 1872. His role in bringing the railroads to the area led to the first post office for the area being dubbed "McAlester."

Using the knowledge he had gotten from Weldon, McAlester was able to make many lucrative coal claims in the area and to establish what eventually became McAlester Coal Mining Co. Since there was not enough labor in the Choctaw Nation to support the growing coal industry, immigrant workers from the United States and Europe were recruited to work in the mines, including a large Carpatho-Russian community.