Horace M. Albright

Horace M. Albright
Born	January 6, 1890 Bishop, California
Died	March 28, 1987 (aged 97) Van Nuys, California
Occupation	conservationist, Director of the National Park Service
Spouse(s)	Grace Noble
Children	two
Parent(s)	George Albright (fth)

Supt. Albright enjoys a "bear dinner", Yellowstone National Park, 1922

Horace Marden Albright (January 6, 1890 – March 28, 1987) was an American conservationist.

Horace Albright was born in 1890 in Bishop, California, the son of George Albright, a miner. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1912, and earned a law degree from Georgetown University. Albright married his college classmate Grace Noble and they had two children.

After graduation he worked for the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C. Albright became a legal assistant to Stephen Mather when Mather became Assistant Secretary in charge of National Parks, and later assisted Mather when the National Park Service (NPS) was established in 1916. As legal assistant he helped acquire land for several new national parks in the east. When Mather became ill, Albright managed the NPS as acting director. He later served as superintendent of Yellowstone National Park and, for a short time, Yosemite National Park. On October 18, 1922 he was elected Associate Member of the Boone and Crockett Club, a wildlife conservation organization founded by Theodore Roosevelt and George Bird Grinnell, in 1887.

On January 12, 1929, Albright succeeded Mather as the second director of the NPS and held the post until August 9, 1933. In 1933 Albright resigned to work for the U.S. Potash Corporation and U.S. Borax and Chemical Corporation, serving variously as director, vice president, and general manager. During this time they lived in New Rochelle, New York. In 1937, his portrait was painted by artist Herbert A. Collins.^[1]

The nation's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, was awarded to Albright by President Jimmy Carter on the 64th anniversary of the National Park Service. President Carter announced the award in August 1980, and the medal was presented on December 8 by Assistant Secretary of the Interior Robert L. Herbst, in a ceremony at Van Nuys, California.

Albright died in Van Nuys, California in 1987.^[2][3]

Albright Grove, a grove of old-growth hemlocks and tulip poplars located in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, was named in Albright's honor.^[4] The Albright Training Center at Grand Canyon National Park and the Albright Visitor Center at Yellowstone National Park also bear his name.

References

1. Biography of Herbert Alexander Collins, by Alfred W. Collins, February 1975, 4 pages typed, in the possession of Collins' great-great grand-daughter, D. Dahl of Tacoma, WA
2. "Horace Albright Dies. Founded Park Service". New York Times. March 29, 1987. Retrieved 2009-09-30. Horace Marden Albright, a conservationist who was a co-founder and second director of the National Park Service, died of heart failure early yesterday at a convalescent home in Los Angeles. He was 97 years old.
3. "National Park Service Co-founder Dies," Yosemite 49(1):4 (Spring 1987)
4. "Albright Grove Trail - Maddron Bald Loop Trail in Great Smoky Mountains National Park". Mysmokymountainvacation.com. Retrieved 2013-06-19.

External links

• Works by or about Horace M. Albright at Internet Archive
• National Park Service Biography
• "Oh, Ranger!" by Horace M. Albright and Frank J. Taylor (1928, 1929, 1934, 1972). Whimsical look at managing the National parks
• Creating the National Park Service: The Missing Years by Horace M. Albright and Marian Albright Schenck (Univ. of OK Press, 1999) Memoirs about creating the NPS written with the assistance of Albright's daughter
• Albright, Horace M. as told to Robert Cahn; The Birth of the National Park Service; The Founding Years, 1913–33; Howe Brothers, Salt Lake City, Utah; 1985.
• College of Natural Resources / University of California, Berkeley