Saving the Great American West:  The Story of George Bird Grinnell

The great West that George Bird Grinnell first encountered in 1870 as a 21-year-old man was shortly to disappear before his eyes.  Nobody was quicker to sense the desecration or was more eloquent in crusading against the poachers, the hide-hunters, and the disengaged U.S. Congress than George Bird Grinnell, the “Father of American Conservation.”  Grinnell founded the first Audubon Society, co-founded the Boone and Crockett Club with Teddy Roosevelt, and led the effort to establish Glacier National Park.  Audiences will travel back in time to the 19^th century, listening to Grinnell’s own words as taken from his field journals, memoirs, personal correspondence, and newspaper editorials.  Additionally, audiences will enjoy dozens of 19th-century photographs, which visually capture Grinnell’s many expeditions and discoveries.

Hugh Grinnell received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from The University of Arizona.  Since his retirement in 2004, Grinnell has studied the history of the great American West.   After discovering an old Great Northern Railway (GNR) passenger car named “Grinnell Glacier,” he researched the car’s name, only to learn that the glacier was named in honor of the efforts of George Bird Grinnell, a distant cousin of Grinnell’s who was a naturalist and explorer.  Grinnell continues to carry on his research of George Bird Grinnell and the Grinnell family, writing articles and producing DVDs.  In 2010, he presented “Saving the Great American West” at the annual convention of the GNR Historical Society and 100^th anniversary of the establishment of Glacier National Park, held in Glacier National Park.