Hugh Morton

Hugh MacRae Morton (February 19, 1921 – June 1, 2006) was a photographer and nature conservationist who developed Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina.

Personal life Morton was born on February 19, 1921, in Wilmington, North Carolina, the grandson of local businessman and politician Hugh MacRae, and the great-grandson of Brigadier General William MacRae of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.

Hugh MacRae Morton entered the University of North Carolina in 1940 and took photographs for the student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel. He left school in 1942 to fight in World War II. In 1942, he joined the Signal Corps (United States Army) as a photographer and was sent to the Pacific Theater. After he returned to the United States, Morton married Julia Taylor in 1945 and they had four children. Morton was well known in North Carolina as a fan of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill sports and friend of many influential North Carolinians. Morton authored two books of his photography: Hugh Morton's North Carolina (University of North Carolina Press, 2003) and Hugh Morton: North Carolina Photographer, which was published in 2006.

Grandfather Mountain Morton's great-grandfather, Donald MacRae, bought the development rights for the around Grandfather Mountain in 1889 from Walter Waightstill Lenoir, grandson of General William Lenoir. In 1952 Morton inherited more than 4,000 acres on Grandfather Mountain from his grandfather, Hugh MacRae, and immediately set out on making the property more accessible to tourists. In 1952 Morton extended and improved a vehicle road to the top of the mountain, and erected the original Mile High Swinging Bridge to provide visitor access to one of the most spectacular scenic vistas in the southeastern United States. In 1968, Morton bought two black bears, one male and one female, to release back into the wild as part of a re-population effort; however, the female bear, named Mildred, would not adapt to the wild, and was required to be recaptured and given an enclosed habitat, which was finished in 1973. The Grandfather Mountain Animal Habitats now contain black bears, deer, eagles, river otters and mountain lions. In 1993 Grandfather Mountain became the first privately owned property in the world to receive UNESCO recognition as an International Biosphere Reserve. Two years after Hugh Morton died in 2006, his family sold approximately 2,650 acres of the mountain's protected wilderness to the state of North Carolina for $12 million, along with a conservation easement on approximately 700 acres that the Morton family gifted to the Grandfather Mountain Stewardship Foundation. The 2,650-acre tract purchased by the state includes Calloway Peak, elevation 5,946 feet, and was turned into North Carolina's 34th state park, Grandfather Mountain State Park, officially receiving that status in April 2009.

Photography Morton was a prolific photographer who took photographs of all aspects of life in North Carolina. His first published photograph came in 1935, when he was 14; a picture he took of a golfing scene was published as a North Carolina travel advertisement in Time Magazine. During his time at the University of North Carolina, he was a photographer for the student newspaper, the Daily Tar Heel. He took pictures of sports at the University of North Carolina for over six decades; one anecdote says that people at UNC basketball games were warned not to block the view of "Mr. Morton's seat." In 1949, Morton was elected the president of the Carolina Photographers Association. In addition to photography, Morton was also a filmmaker.

Morton's photographic and film life's work has been donated to North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives in Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This collection is currently being digitized, a project which is being chronicled on the A View To Hugh blog.