Recipient Biography

Silver Medal- Roger W. Toll


 

Roger Wolcott Toll (1883-1936) received the Pugsley Silver Medal for his services in the National Park Services. He was born on October 17, 1883 in Denver, Colorado one of three mountaineering sons od a pioneer Colorado family and educated a Denver University. He graduated in 1906 from Columbia University earning a degree in civil engineering. In March 1908 he worked with the Coast and Geodetic Survey and for a short time surveyed the coastline of Cook Inlet in Alaska. Toll joined the NPS in May 1919. Toll was an avid member of the fledgling Colorado Mountain Club and gave unstintingly of his time to this organization. He was a charter member, one of the 24 organizers, a member of the first board of directors, leader of many trips and an active member of the earliest outing committies.

On February 1, 1929, Toll followed Horace Albright in the positions of Yellowstone superintendent and field assistant to the NPS director. Roger Tolls legacy to the NPS lay not so much in his superintendencies, but in bis superb first hand investigations and reports on the proposed areas to the park system. In early 1936, Toll served on a six-person commission that included George Wright, Conrad Wirth and Frank Pinkley to investogate the possiblity of establishing interenational parks, forest reserves and wildlife refuges along the Mexican-American border. On february 25, while on their way to investigate the Ajo Mountains in Arizona and the adjacent Mexican territory, Toll was killed in an automobile accident nearing Deming, New Mexico.