George Shiras III (1859-1942), born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, developed an interest in wildlife at age eleven when his father took him hunting and fishing near Marquette. He earned a law degree from Yale and practiced law in Pittsburgh, but near the turn of the twentieth century he and his guide, John Hammer, developed innovative flash and camera equipment that enabled them to photograph wildlife in its natural habitat at night. His images, several made in the Marquette area, won a gold medal at the Paris Exposition in 1900 and the grand prize at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt asked him to compile his photographs and notes on wildlife behavior into a book, and in 1935 he published Hunting Wild Life with Camera and Flashlight. Shiras also contributed to wildlife conservation and study: while serving in the U.S. Congress for Pennsylvania from 1903 to 1905, he introduced a bill to protect migratory birds, and his ideas became part of the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act. In 1908 he identified in Yellowstone National Park the smallest subspecies of moose in North America, later named Alces americanus shirasi, or Shiras Moose. He supported a 1925 Michigan gun law that banned hunting wildlife out of season, lived part-time in Marquette for most of his life, donated land at Picnic Rocks for a public park in 1931, founded the Shiras Institute in 1937 to support beautification, recreation and cultural activities for the City of Marquette, and was buried in Park Cemetery.