A professor named John W. Scott significantly boosted the University of Wyoming Zoology department. Professor Scott was the head of the Zoology department; he was the executive secretary of the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission, the State President and National Director for the Izaak Walton League, a member of the National Association of Conservation Education and Publicity, and a Masonic Mason. With all of John W. Scott’s achievements, he remained an icon to the University of Wyoming.

One of the tales prominent from Professor Scott’s life involves a beaver. Scott was given a beaver in 1935 by “H. W. Stock, the superintendent of the fish hatchery, who discovered the animal frisking about on the highway south of the Monolith one night last week.” Scott had then kept the beaver at his house for about a week as the Zoology labs found this beaver of great interest, and then Professor Scott released him back into the wild.

Another remarkable story from the John W. Scott collection involves a loon. As the story goes, in 1945, Scott found a loon near Laramie, which is an unusual since they’re not seen in that region. Loons can neither on land or fly off from solid ground, but, oddly enough, this loon made it ten miles outside of Laramie. The amazing part about this story is that this loon was possibly blown 400-500 miles off its course and ended up on the side of the road. Dr. Scott successfully returned it to a lake near Laramie.

John W. Scott had many accomplishments in his life such as celebrating his 80th birthday in 1951 to celebrating his marriage to his wife, Vivian, for 50 years in 1954.

Dr. Scott started working at the University in 1913; he was the head of the Zoology department for 28 years. He worked for the college for 43 years until his death in 1956.

To learn more about Scott, see the John W. Scott papers at the American Heritage Center.

– Post submitted by MaKayla Garnica, AHC Carlson Intern.