(This is a repeat of a previous post.)
Eastman Nature Center will hold an open house at 1:00 on Saturday, February
13, to introduce the public to the Whitney H. Eastman Archives. Whitney Eastman
(1888-1979) was a local businessman, philanthropist, and conservationist. He
was also an amateur ornithologist of some renown who served as MOU president,
was the first Minnesotan elected to the board of the National Audubon Society,
and gained national notoriety after his successful Florida search for
Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in the early 1950s. He was a personal friend of Thomas
S. Roberts, Walter Breckenridge, Roger Tory Peterson, Olin Pettingill, Jr.,
Connie Hagar and other national ornithologists as well as highly regarded
Minnesotans such as Sigurd Olson, Wallace Dayton, Elmer Andersen, Robert
Janssen, and Ernest Oberholtzer.
The "WHE Archives" consists of 82 large cord-bound scrapbooks stored at
the nature center. Their 2,600 pages hold over 10,400 items compiled by Eastman
from the 1930s to the late 1970s. Almost 400 of these relate to Ivory-billed
Woodpeckers and Eastman's search for them. Also included are over 3,600
publications encompassing journals and bulletins from dozens of state,
national, and international birding and wildlife societies; more than 2,200
magazine and newspaper articles; photographs; personal bird lists and logs from
birding trips in the U.S. and across the globe; and over 3,000 personal
letters, notes, and cards.
The Archives has been catalogued into a searchable computer database and
will be available for public access and study at the Eastman Nature Center by
appointment through a process that will be explained at the open house. If you
are interested in this sort of thing, plan to attend this free introductory
session. A presentation about the Whitney H. Eastman Archives and Mr. Eastman
himself will begin at 1:15 and several of the scrapbooks will be available for
perusal. If you've never visited Eastman Nature Center, located in the
northwest suburbs on the west side of 5,000-acre Elm Creek Park Reserve, here's
a good excuse!
To reserve a seat on Feb. 13, please call the nature center at
763-694-7700. The address is 13351 Elm Creek Road, Dayton, MN 55369.
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