Stephen Mather Builds the National Park Service
Stephen Mather was the first director of the National Park Service, but he was much more than a bureaucrat. His abilities as a manager and his personal donations as a Read more…
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Camel’s Hump State Park
Joseph Battell was a Vermont newspaper publisher, and promoter of the Morgan horse. His creation of the American Morgan Horse Registry and donation of his horse farm to the national Read more…
Muir Woods National Monument
The oldest surviving California sequoias are thousands of years old. Sheathed by the fogs that roll in daily from the Pacific, they reach hundreds of feet in height. Ancient specimens Read more…
Grand Canyon of the East
Central New Yorker William Letchworth made a fortune in the iron business, then retired at age 48 to a property he had purchased in the spectacular deep gorge carved by Read more…
Pierre du Pont Creates Longwood Gardens
In 1798, the twin grandsons of a Quaker who was farming 400 acres in the far southeastern corner of Pennsylvania developed an interest in natural history; they began planting a Read more…
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Ellen Scripps, whose fortune derived from the Scripps family’s newspaper empire, generously supported a range of charitable causes across southern California. She donated the land and first building for a Read more…
From Snowy Egrets to Jungle Gardens
Just after the Civil War, E. A. “Ned” McIlhenny was born on Louisiana’s Avery Island—a 2,500 acre dome surrounded by marsh, swamp, and bayou. His family had operated a sugar Read more…
Trustees of Reservations
During the later nineteenth century, Charles Eliot was a young man working as a landscape architect in Boston. His father was president of Harvard and would be instrumental in founding Read more…
Appalachian Mountain Club
In 1876, Edward Pickering, professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, convened on MIT’s Boston campus a gathering of 34 men with a shared interest in mountain exploration Read more…
ASPCA Births the Animal Welfare Movement
Henry Bergh operated the shipbuilding business founded in New York City by his father, and retired early with a substantial fortune. An abolitionist, his friendship with William Seward won him Read more…
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Silicon Valley pioneer David Packard had two daughters who studied marine biology, and they saw to it that an aquarium celebrating and studying the marine life of Monterey Bay became Read more…
Improving Water Quality with Market Incentives
In 1983, a group of flyfishers calling themselves Oregon Trout started working for new water laws that would allow fishermen to buy a right to water and then keep it Read more…
Land Trusts Take Off
Land trusts, or conservancies, are private nonprofits that protect land directly by owning it. Though their roots go back to the 1890s, in the latest generation land trusts have become Read more…
Central Park Conservancy
Starting in the 1960s, Central Park began a long decline. Once-emerald lawns were trampled to bare dirt. Ineffective policing and homeless policies allowed vagrants and gangs to take over. Graffiti Read more…
Free Market Environmentalism
As far back as the 1930s, pioneer conservationists like Aldo Leopold argued that in a country like the U.S. built around private property and markets, it is important to find Read more…
Citizen-led Bluebird Recovery
The bluebird, an American favorite, faced disaster when the non-native house sparrow took over much of its habitat. Both birds are cavity nesters, and the sparrows will often kill bluebirds Read more…
Early Use of Conservation Easements in Montana
Montana Land Reliance was founded in 1978 by Barbara Rusmore and Christina Torgrimson, who wanted to preserve Montana’s beautiful outdoor scenery and “provide permanent protection for private lands that are Read more…
Yawkey Wildlife Center
Almost exactly midway between Myrtle Beach and Charleston in South Carolina is a 24,000-acre beachfront refuge and resting spot considered one of the best in North America—but for transient birds Read more…
Guadalupe Mountains National Park
In 1918 Wallace Pratt became the first geologist to work for Humble Oil (forerunner to ExxonMobil). He and several colleagues created scientific ways to find oil with less guesswork, and Read more…
Saving the Winged Cheetah
The peregrine falcon is the fastest creature on earth. When it spots prey with its piercing eyesight, it shrieks down out of the sky at more than 200 miles an Read more…