Frank W. Preston

Frank W. Preston (May 14, 1896 – March 1, 1989) was an English-American engineer, ecologist, and conservationist. He helped found the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and worked to reclaim the land that is now Moraine State Park in Butler County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. Preston was a leading expert in glass technology. He studied birds throughout his life and published papers on the shapes and pigmentation of birds' eggs, the distribution of the heights of their nests, and their migration patterns. Preston also wrote three major papers on the mathematical characteristics of ecological rarity and commonness.

Biography

Early life Frank W. Preston was born on May 14, 1896, in Leicester, England. He received three degrees from the University of London upon graduation in 1916. Following his college years, Preston worked as a civil engineer in Loughborough, England. He was drafted into the British Army during World War I but received a maximum exemption through the efforts of his employer. Preston was personally against the exemption and wrote the draft board in 1917 stating a desire to serve "in anything useful and suggested a brief exemption."

Work as a conservationist Preston Laboratories was first located in Butler, then later moved to Meridian, Pennsylvania. Meridian is just south of the Muddy Creek and Slippery Rock Creek valleys. These valleys are where Preston began his work as a conservationist.

The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy worked with the state to reclaim the land. The mines were sealed, over 400 oil and gas wells were capped, and the land that had been stripped was covered again with back fill, and graded to resemble its former condition. The soil was specially treated with fertilizer to allow for the growth of thousands of trees, shrubs and grasses. Lake Arthur was completed in 1970 with the opening of Moraine State Park on May 23, 1970. Frank W. Preston died on March 1, 1989, in Butler, Pennsylvania. His Meridian property has since become a park owned and maintained by Butler Township following the death of his wife, Jane, in 2008. The property was willed to the township on the grounds that it never be timbered, mined, or drilled for natural gas. The park was named Preston Park in his honor.