Montana's Pioneer Naturalist, Morton J. Elrod : University of Oklahoma Press : 9780806154367 : 0806154365 : 30 Sep 2016 : A naturalist on Montana's academic frontier, passionate conservationist Morton J. Elrod was instrumental in establishing the Department of Biology at the University of Montana, as well as Glacier National Park and the National Bison Range. In Montana's Pioneer Naturalist, the first in-depth assessment of Elrod's career, George M. Dennison reveals how one man helped to shape the scholarly study of nature and its institutionalization in the West at the turn of the century. Elrod moved to Missoula in 1897, just four years after the state university's founding, and participated in virtually every aspect of university life for almost forty years. To reveal the depths of this pioneer scientist's influence on the growth of his university, his state, and the academic fields he worked in, author George M. Dennison delves into state and university archives, including Elrod's