Wilderness Society Historical Heroes

Bob Marshall

One can only imagine the strides wilderness conservation could have made had Bob Marshall lived past 40. The “principal” founder of The Wilderness Society, Marshall introduced many of the fundamental aspirations of modern conservation, including preserving Alaskan wildlands and shaping the U.S. Forest Service's policy on wilderness designation and management. Marshall spent most of his life working for the federal government, as director of forestry for the Interior Department’s Office of Indian Affairs and later as chief of recreation and lands for the Forest Service. Arctic Village: A 1930's Portrait Of Wiseman, Alaska, chronicling his time living among Natives and whites, was published in 1933, and the author shared his royalties with the villagers. Marshall died of heart failure a few weeks before his 39th birthday in 1940. His will provided much of the money that kept The Wilderness Society running. Read more about Bob Marshall.

Aldo Leopold

Author of A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold is the most renowned of The Wilderness Society’s founders. Leopold began his career at the U.S. Forest Service in 1909, and he led the effort to protect 500,000 acres of New Mexico's Gila National Forest, the nation’s first officially designated wilderness area. In 1933, Leopold became a professor of wildlife management at the University of Wisconsin, where he taught until his death. After combining forces with the rest of the Wilderness Society’s founders in 1935, Leopold introduced the concept of a “land ethic,” writing that “the oldest task in human history [is] to live on a piece of land without spoiling it.” Leopold died in 1948 from a heart attack two hours after fighting a brush fire on a neighbor's farm. A Sand County Almanac was published posthumously. Read more about Aldo Leopold.

Benton MacKaye

A founder of The Wilderness Society and mastermind behind the Appalachian Trail, Benton MacKaye maintained that recreation and other human use should be a prime reason to conserve land. Son of dramatist and actor Steele MacKaye, Benton attended Harvard and was the first student to register for its school of forestry. After a long career with the Tennessee Valley Authority, MacKaye spent several years working for the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Forest Service. The Benton MacKaye Trail, which runs 300 miles from Georgia to Tennessee and coincides with portions of the Appalachian Trail, was completed in 1980.

Robert Sterling Yard

At 74, Robert Sterling Yard was decades older than the rest of the founders of The Wilderness Society. Yard had started his conservation career 20 years prior to The Society’s creation, eventually founding and leading the National Parks Association. Admired for his writing skills, Yard served as The Wilderness Society’s permanent secretary and edited The Living Wilderness magazine until 1945, the year he died. He edited his last two issues of the magazine while bedridden with pneumonia.

Ansel Adams

Easily the most celebrated landscape photographer of his time, Ansel Adams was also a dedicated conservationist who put his art to work in seeking protection of America’s natural treasures. He has been called “the visual John Muir.” A long-time member of the Sierra Club’s board, Adams also teamed up with The Wilderness Society to advocate for wilderness. He contributed greatly to our Living Wilderness magazine and in 1984 gave The Society 75 of his original prints for public display at our Washington, DC, headquarters. They are still there for public enjoyment today. Every year, The Wilderness Society presents an Ansel Adams Award to a current or former federal official who has been a fervent advocate of conservation. Adams died on Earth Day, 1984.

Harold Anderson

In August 1934, Anderson wrote to Benton MacKaye of his desire to start the country's first organization dedicated to the protection of wilderness: "You and Bob Marshall have been preaching that those who love the primitive should get together and give a united expression of their views. That is what I would like to get started,” said this Wilderness Society founder. An accountant in Washington, Anderson was a prominent member of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club and was especially concerned about the proposed building of skylines along the Appalachian crest.

Harvey Broome

A Wilderness Society founder and a graduate of Harvard Law School, Harvey Broome spent the majority of his life juggling a career as a lawyer with his passion for the great outdoors. A longtime president of Smokey Mountains Hiking Club in Tennessee, Broome served as president of The Wilderness Society from 1957 to 1968. In 1964, Broome stood with many other prominent conservationists to watch President Lyndon B. Johnson sign the Wilderness Act. Later in life, Broome was appointed to the Advisory Council of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission and was elected president of the East Tennessee Historical Society.

Bernard Frank

Born in New York City in 1902, Frank worked for the U.S. Forest Service for more than 30 years, mostly in the agency’s Washington headquarters. In 1960 he became a professor of watershed management at Colorado State University. He was a leader in organizing the Rock Creek Watershed Association, which worked to restore and preserve the area around Rock Creek in Washington, D.C., and Maryland. Frank participated with Justice William O. Douglas in the successful campaign to create the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park. He served on The Wilderness Society’s Executive Committee from 1940 to 1959 and was active in many other conservation-oriented organizations, including the Society of American Foresters, the Soil Conservation Society of America, the National Audubon Society, and the Colorado Mountain Club.

Margaret “Mardy” Murie

Known as the “grandmother of the conservation movement,” Margaret (Mardy) Murie teamed up with her husband Olaus to campaign for the protection of wild Alaska and other lands, a crusade she maintained for decades after his death. After the death of her husband, Mardy served as a governing council member for The Wilderness Society. The first woman to graduate from the University of Alaska, Murie moved to the state with her family at a young age. She wrote popular books about long camping trips in the Alaskan wilderness with her husband and children, and she often was on Capitol Hill, urging lawmakers to protect the wilderness in her home state. Murie was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President William Clinton in January 1998. More on Mardy Murie.

Olaus Murie

The son of Norwegian immigrants, Olaus Murie was an esteemed wildlife biologist and conservation activist. A key player the creation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, Murie helped shape a new way of thinking about predators and ecosystems. He helped convince President Franklin Roosevelt to add surrounding rain forests to Olympic National Monument, and with his younger brother Adolph was instrumental in establishing Jackson Hole Monument in Wyoming. Murie served as president of The Wilderness Society from 1950 to 1957. More on Olaus Murie.

Sen. Gaylord Nelson

The founder of Earth Day in 1970, Sen. Gaylord Nelson represented Wisconsin for 18 years, championing landmark environmental legislation, including the Wilderness Act and a bill to create a national hiking trails system. A former Wisconsin governor, Nelson was The Wilderness Society’s counselor from 1981 until his death in 2005. President William Clinton presented the former senator with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995. More on Gaylord Nelson.

Ernest Oberholtzer

Ernest Oberholtzer was an American explorer, author and conservationist. He was a founder of The Wilderness Society and served on its executive council and from 1937 until 1967. Nicknamed "Ober," he was born and raised in Davenport, Iowa, but he lived most of his adult life in Minnesota. In 1913, Oberholtzer moved to Rainy Lake and in 1922 purchased Mallard Island. The tiny island would be his home for more than 50 years. In addition to his wilderness campaigning, he spoke fluent Ojibwe and was a fervent student of their culture. Oberholtzer, who died in 1977, championed the preservation of the Quetico-Superior Lake area and was a strong advocate of the Native American culture in that region. The Minneapolis Star Tribune selected Oberholtzer as one of the 100 Most Influential Minnesotans of the 20th century.

Howard Zahniser

A wilderness conservation “legend” in his own right, Howard Zahniser authored the original draft of the Wilderness Act. This law established a legislative process for permanently protecting wildlands as Wilderness and it created the National Wilderness Preservation System, which now encompasses more than 109 million acres. Between 1956 and 1964, Zahniser wrote 66 drafts of the bill. Known as a compelling writer, Zahniser served as executive secretary of The Wilderness Society and editor of its magazine, The Living Wilderness, from 1945 until his death in 1964.