Walter Curran Mendenhall


Walter Curran Mendenhall, was the fifth director of the US Geological Survey.

Life

Mendenhall was born in Marlboro, Ohio to William King Mendenhall and Emma P. Garrigues. He graduated from Ohio Normal University. He married Alice May Boutelle ; the couple had two daughters, Margaret Boutelle Mendenhall and Alice Curran Mendenhall.

USGS career

In December 1930, Hoover appointed George Otis Smith to the newly reorganized Federal Power Commission and then appointed Walter C. Mendenhall to succeed Smith as Director of the US Geological Survey, honoring not only a commitment to appoint the heads of scientific agencies from within the civil service but also a commitment to support basic research. Mendenhall and Smith were both 59 years old. Mendenhall had joined the Survey in 1894, fresh from Ohio Normal University, and had mapped in the Appalachian coal fields. In 1898, he had been one of the pioneer geologists in Alaska, and in 1903 he had become one of the first ground-water specialists in the Water Resources Branch.
An early member of the Land Classification Board, he became its chairman in 1911 and in 1912 the first Chief of the Land Classification Branch. For eight years before becoming Director, Mendenhall had been the Chief Geologist. Although more than half his surveying career had been in administrative work, he had made notable contributions to the geology of Alaska, and his study of the principles in ground-water hydrology had helped to establish it as a field of scientific endeavor. King, Powell, Walcott and Mendenhall all were members of the National Academy of Sciences.
Mendenhall's directorate was pivotal in the history of the Geological Survey. In spite of the difficult times, the depression years, and the beginning of World War II, he encouraged the Survey, as he had the Geologic Branch, to emphasize the necessity of basic research and created an environment in which, in the words of the Engineering and Mining Journal, "scientific research, technical integrity, and practical skill could flourish."
A year after Mendenhall became Director, the Federal budget was sharply cut as the effects of the depression began to be felt. The appropriations were not restored to earlier levels until the late 1930s, shortly before the outbreak of World War II, but the Survey subsisted, even grew, on funds transferred from agencies formed to combat the depression by the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. The Tennessee Valley Authority, established in May 1933, turned to the Survey to meet its need for maps of the entire valley and for a much expanded program of stream gaging throughout the basin.
In 1943, as the Federal Government began planning for the postwar era, Director Mendenhall, who had served 2 years beyond then mandatory retirement age by Presidential exemption, was succeeded by William Embry Wrather. Mendenhall died in Chevy Chase, Maryland, 1957.

Publications