Daniel Beard was born in 1850 and lived most of his life in Kentucky. From an early age, Beard decided to devote his life to American boyhood. He was a prolific writer, illustrator, the founder of two different societies for boys and one of the original founding members of the Boy Scouts of America. Beard's writings were a great influence on Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot and helped impress the need for preserving America's forests on them. Before his death in 1941, Beard received the only Golden Eagle badge ever awarded for his work from the Boy Scouts of America and had the mountain peak adjoining Mt. McKinley in Alaska named in his honor.
