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 items 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 within the U.S. and across the globe; and over 3,000 personal letters, notes, and cards. For example, included are over 200 MOU journals and newsletters dating from 1940. The content of the Archives has been catalogued into a searchable computer database and will be available for public access and study at 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 on display. 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 or email to WHEArchives AT threeriversparkdistrict.org (include a contact phone number). The address is 13351 Elm Creek Road, Dayton, MN 55369. ---- Join or Leave mou-net:http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives:http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
