Harold Pegram Fabian (1885-1975) received the national level Pugsley Medal in 1964 “for his contributions to establishing Grand Teton National Park and the Utah state park system, and to the National Parks Advisory Board.” Fabian was a member of a pioneer, non-Mormon Western family, and was a banker in Salt Lake City where Fabian was born. After attending grade schools in Salt Lake City, he was educat
Through his partner, Beverly Clendenin, Fabian met Horace Albright, the superintendent of Yellowstone National Park, around 1920 and formed a lasting relationship. At the same time a group of Jackson Hole residents was making plans to preserve the Teton Mountains from unrestricted development and had recruited Albright to their cause.
Rockefeller was on a tour of the West in 1926. Fabian and Clendenin quickly began to organize a preservation plan. The firm of Fabian, Clendenin was contacted to act as counsel, and Fabian became the legal representative of Rockefeller and the person responsible for organizing and operating the Snake River Land Company. The Snake River Land Co. was incorporated to acquire property for eventual inclusion in the proposed National Park. Fabian was not at first aware that the purchase program was earnestly underway by 1929, by which time Rockefeller was purchasing large local Wasatch Mountain areas.
ed in the East at Mercersburg Academy; at Yale University (AB 1907); and at Harvard Law School, from which he graduated in 1910.
In the 1950s, Fabian became the leader of a movement to establish a state park system in Utah, one of the three or four states that did not yet have such a system. He was successful in securing authorizing legislation; and was then appointed by the state’s governor as chair of the state park commission which made remarkable progress in establishing both scenic and historic parks under Fabian’s leadership.