Virgil McCroskey devoted much of his life to preserving land for public enjoyment, donating 4,400 acres for this Idaho state park in 1955 in memory of his mother, Mary Minerva McCroskey, and earlier giving 120 acres to Washington in 1946 to create Steptoe Butte State Park. Born on October 5, 1876 in Rockville, Tennessee, he moved west with his family before age three and grew up on a farm near Colfax, Washington, where he developed a love for the outdoors, especially trees and wildflowers, and looked east across the fields to the forested ridge in Idaho that he would later help preserve. He earned diplomas from Washington State University in pharmacy, economics and history in 1898, practiced pharmacy from 1903 to 1920 in Walla Walla, Waitsburg and Colfax, traveled abroad, and climbed Mount Rainier and Mount Hood. After inheriting the family farm following his father's death in 1910, he worked to maintain it but concluded that lasting preservation would require selling the farm and buying Steptoe Butte and Skyline Ridge to donate as state parks. When Idaho legislators hesitated to accept Skyline Ridge, he persisted and strengthened his offer by agreeing to perform all maintenance for the first 15 years and provide $500 per year for park operating expenses. The legislature accepted the gift in 1955, creating what is now Idaho's second oldest state park, and he continued working in the park almost every day until his death in 1970 at age ninety-three.