Tom Wallace (1874-1961) received the Pugsley Silver Medal for his services in saving Cumberland Falls in Eastern Kentucky. He was born in Hurricane, Kentucky and studied at Weaver's Business College in Louisville and at Randolph- Macon College in Ashland, Virginia. In his early years, he worked in Richmond, Virginia, as a bookkeeper, with an ice company in Shelbyville and in a tooth-powder factory in New York City. He conducted a vigorous editorial crusade to save Cumberland Falls from being destroyed by the Samuel Insull electric power company, which proposed to develop the Falls for waterpower. Wallace fight in the Louisiville Times began in 1925, in editorial columns and continued steadily.
Wallace's concern for saving the Falls was part of his deeper concern for the land in general. The time will come, if vandalism proceeds, if conservationists are called mere visionary fellows when the hills surrounding Pineville and Harlan on the Cumberland River, those above Irvine and Beattyville and Whitesburg on the Kentucky River those about Pikeville on the Big Sandy, will be debuded and when the hills all over the state, will be bare and bleeding under the pelting of every rain. Wallace served as a director of the Izaak Walton League in 1946 and 1947 vice president of Natural Bridge State Park-board member of Association, executive board member of Mammoth Cave National Park Association.