C. Frank Brockman

C. Frank Brockman, the park's second naturalist, assesses the water at Longmire Springs.

NPS Photo

Quick Facts

Significance:

Second full-time naturalist at Mount Rainier National Park

Place of Birth:

Cincinatti, OH

Date of Birth:

1902

Date of Death:

March 20, 1985

C. Frank Brockman, the second full time naturalist at Mount Rainier National Park, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1902. After earning a BS in Forestry from Colorado State University in 1924, he worked several different positions before landing as a seasonal ranger at Mount Rainier National Park in 1928. After Floyd Schmoe, the full-time naturalist, left the position at the end of summer 1928, Brockman took over. 

He added value to the field of interpretation at Mount Rainier and beyond by creating the Longmire Museum, advocating for a museum at Paradise, contributing to Nature Notes, the park’s regular naturalist publication, and measuring the movement of park glaciers. After earning his master's degree from the University of Washington in 1931, he continued to expand the naturalist program by creating a “museum room” at Sunrise and offering both indoor and outdoor naturalist programs for the public. 

To expand naturalist programs to a wider public audience, park naturalists participated in 15 minute radio interviews and offered lectures at public schools. Brockman compiled an encyclopedia of Mount Rainier natural and cultural history, titled “The Mount Rainier National Park Encyclopedia of Information,” but unfortunately it was never published. 

In 1941, Brockman left Mount Rainier to work at Yosemite National Park and continued working there for five years before becoming Associate Professor of the College of Forestry at University of Washington in 1946. In 1961 Brockman was sent to Africa by the Department of State, Office of Cultural Exchange as an advisor on land conservation and recreation.  

Throughout his life, Brockman published several books, including Trees of North America: A Guide to Field Identification, A Guide to the Mother Lode Country, and Principal Waterfalls of the World, a special edition of Yosemite Nature Notes. 

C. Frank Brockman died March 20, 1985