Horace Marden Albright (January 6, 1890 – March 28, 1987) was an American conservationist and the second director of the National Park Service.
Early life and education
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.
Career and later life
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. He next worked 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, the Albrights lived in New Rochelle, New York. In 1937, Albright's portrait was painted by artist Herbert A. Collins.
Albright died in Van Nuys, California, in 1987.
Honors and awards
In 1969, Albright received the National Audubon Society's highest honor, the Audubon Medal.
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 Grove, a grove of old-growth hemlocks and tulip poplars located in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, was named in Albright's honor. The Albright Training Center at Grand Canyon National Park, the Albright Visitor Center at Yellowstone National Park, and Albright Peak in Grand Teton National Park also bear his name.
References
Further reading
Becher, Anne, and Joseph Richey, American Environmental Leaders: From Colonial Times to the Present (2 vol, 2nd ed. 2008) vol 1 online p. 15.
External links
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. Horace M. Albright, Mining Lawyer and Executive. 1986 interview, Oral History Office, University of California, Berkeley. Accessed 8/16/2017