commitment to the Academy, and in many ways exceeded those energetic 
scientific men of the nineteenth century. Morton’s contributions of ser- 
vice, money, and collections in some ways outstripped even those of 
George Engelmann. For example, Morton served as president for twenty- 
one years whereas Engelmann held the position for eight. 
Morton, an extremely successful and wealthy insurance executive, 
joined the Academy in 1939 and was elected president and Chairman 
of the Board seven years later. He held that position—with a four-year 
illness-related hiatus (1948-52)— until his death in 1970. One of Mor- 
ton’s projects was an unsuccessful attempt to obtain the Faust House 
for the Academy. Although the Faust project failed, Morton never gave 
up; he persisted in “‘planning and pushing to give St. Louis the kind 
of Science Museum he dreamed of, the kind of museum of which St. 
Louis could be proud.’’*? 
It was Morton, more than any other individual, who steered the 
Academy on the course that led to the establishment of the Museum 
of Science and Natural History in Oak Knoll Park. Moreover, it was 
Morton who managed to raise a large percentage of the money that kept 
the Museum afloat in the 1960s. 
When Stratford Lee Morton died in 1970 he was remembered as 
‘a man of the present looking forward to a better future.’’34 Ironical- 
ly, he died a little more than a year before the creation of the Zoo- 
Museum Tax District—something Morton regarded as a very large and 
important part of a better future for the Museum he helped create. 
Although the Academy knew it had lost one of its greatest champions 
with the passing of Morton, the talented, dedicated members who suc- 
ceeded him would lead the Academy into a new period of bolstering 
tradition and forging ahead in the 1970s and 1980s. 
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