Philetus Norris

Philetus Walter Norris ( born August 17, 1821 in Palmyra, Wayne County, New York, † January 14, 1885 in Rocky Hill, Kentucky) was the second superintendent of Yellowstone National Park.

Children and youth

Norris grew up in Palmyra, New York State, near the Great Falls of the Genesee River. With ten years he led tourists to the falls. This activity came to an end when his family in Michigan bought land and moved there. The father's health suffered soon and Philetus Norris had to take over as the only son of a majority of the work. The school education fell by the wayside. He learned only through experience and through books. At 17, Norris took a job with the Hudson's Bay Company in Manitoba.

Postmaster and Farmer

Five years later he bought land on the edge of the Great Black Swamp in Ohio. It took him two years to clear the land and build a cabin. In 1845 he moved, and his bride Jane Cotrill from Fayette. After other families had moved into their neighborhood, a post office under the name of "Pioneer, Ohio " was built. Norris was the first postmaster. 1853 Norris announced his land into lots, which he sold a few. As a direct consequence the village Pioneer was officially established. Close to the previous hut Norris built a large farm house. There he lived until the outbreak of the civil war in 1861.

Officer and politician

On May 2, 1862 Norris joined voluntarily in the Northern States Army and put together a company that was incorporated into the Hoffman Battalion of the Ohio Infantry. In West Virginia, he was so severely wounded that he ( Captain ) had to retire from the Army on January 5, 1863 with the rank of captain.

Norris was elected to the Senate of Ohio and ran for the Inspector General of the newly established Montana Territory, but could not prevail against Henry Dana Washburn. So Norris worked for the time being for the sanitary commission of the Union army and then he supervised a military prison on Kelley Iceland.

Real estate brokers and newspaper publisher

After the war he moved drainage lines to turn swampland into valuable farmland. In total, he sold as 40 km ² of good land near Detroit. Instead, he earned 8 km ² of land in Hamtramck, a suburb of Detroit, and moved his family there after. He built up a thriving real estate company and issued a paper called Norris Suburban. In it he published repeatedly articles about the West, including on expeditions through the territory of present-day Yellowstone National Park. 1872, the national park was established. Norris continued to report on this area and criticized the first superintendent of the park, Nathaniel P. Langford.

Second Superintendent of Yellowstone National Park

Because of the criticism of Langford Norris was delivered pushed the responsibility of the park. He presided this office from April 18, 1877 to February 2, 1882. Norris devoted himself full of energy the management of the park. In 1878 he was able to obtain the first funding of $ 10,000 by Congress. He left the Norris Street to build the geyser basin and an administration building on Capitol Hill. He also conducted various investigations of the parking area. His scientific curiosity led to valuable insights into the disciplines of anthropology, archeology and geology. Because of lack of money but could also lead to Norris Park only inadequate. This took advantage of his opponents to depose him.

Retirement

Norris returned in 1882 to Illinois back. In 1884 he published his book "The Calumet of the Coteau ." In addition, he studied for the Smithsonian Institution, the prehistoric mounds in the Ohio Valley.

Norris died on January 14, 1885 in Rocky Hill, Kentucky. He was buried in the Elmwood Cemetery in Detroit.

According to him, the Norris Geyser Basin, the town of Norris Junction, the Norris Pass and Mount Norris, all of them in Yellowstone National Park, named.

646763
de