Conservationist inducted into National Rivers Hall of Fame

DUBUQUE — The late Williamson Dilg was inducted into the National Rivers Hall of Fame at a ceremony this month at the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium in Dubuque.

Dilg (1869-1927) was the driving force behind the establishment of the Upper Mississippi River Wildlife and Fish Refuge from north of Winona, Minn., to Rock Island, Ill.

He was one of the most prominent voices for conservation and the environment in the 1920s and was the founder and first president of the Izaak Walton League.

Dilg gave up his job as the head of a large Chicago advertising business to cross the country speaking, writing and organizing to preserve 240,000 acres of the Upper Mississippi River bottomland and backwaters and prevent them from being diked and drained.

On June 7, 1924, Congress authorized the refuge, the first time in U.S. history the federal government purchased large tracts of private lands for conservation and public use.

This year marks the centennial of its establishment.

Dilg and the League then moved on to other issues such as protecting the elk in Jackson Hole, Wyo., strengthening migratory bird laws and protecting the Superior National Forest from lumber interests.

Dilg spent most of the remaining 11 months of his life in Washington, D.C., lobbying Congress and the Coolidge administration to establish a Cabinet level Department of Conservation.

The Izaak Walton League he founded now has more than 2,850 chapters and more than 200,000 members.

To learn more about the nearly 100 honorees in the National Rivers Hall of Fame, go to visit rivermuseum.org/nrhf-inductees.