Pulitzer Prize Nominee Has Won All The Hearts Of Chattanooga

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Robert Sparks Walker’s lifetime achievements on and around Audubon Acres

Robert Sparks Walker is perhaps best known as the founder of the Chattanooga Audubon Society. His significance to conservation efforts led the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation to name their Lifetime Achievement Award the Robert Sparks Walker Award. 

A few people are still alive who remember participating in his nature walks and learning about birds, flowers, and trees under his instruction. His literary achievements are perhaps the least well known of his accomplishments.

He began writing freelance articles while still in high school. He went on to have one of his books nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. At age 22, he acquired fifty percent ownership of the Southern Fruit Grower magazine. He served as editor and publisher of that magazine from 1900 until its sale in 1921. He later served as Nature Editor of Flower Grower magazine.

Walker had a weekly nature column in the Chattanooga Times beginning in 1933. The Chattanooga Audubon Society has a partial collection of these articles titled “Nature Answers: 1940 to 1950”. The copy is available for viewing, with permission, at the Audubon Acres property.

Though only two of Walkers books remain in print, copies of many more are preserved in the Local History Department of the Chattanooga Public Library. A search via the web page worldcat.org revealed copies of Walker’s writings available at libraries nationwide, including The Library of Congress, the Tennessee State Library and Archives, and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga library.

Walker’s first published book, “Anchor Poems”, appeared in 1925, followed by a second book of verse, “My Fathers Farm”, in 1927. By extolling the rural life, Walker found his audience and his audience loved his work. On a visit to the Boston public library, he learned that “My Father’s Farm” was so popular they kept it on closed reserve, only available for reading on the premises. He related that story in his later book, “As the Indians Left It”.

The poems speak of cowbells and mockingbirds with a clover covered hillside at the center of one poem. “The Coming of the Snows” presents a world transformed. His love of the land appears to have been boundless. In the final poem, “The Farm Incarnated” he describes himself as not a resident of the farm but as one infused with its very essence. It ends with these two lines:

I am the incarnation here,

Of father’s farm I loved so dear!

Walker was also active in bird conservation. In 1930, Wyman Reed Green published, “The Banding of Chimney Swifts in Chattanooga” with Robert Sparks Walker listed in card catalogs as an “other author”. This article appeared in a journal titled Bird Banding, July 1930, Volume I. The Chattanooga Public Library has a bound offprint of the article which includes a photo of Walker placing a band on a swift.

Walker had a growing reputation as an author and editor when, at age 53, he published “Torchlights to the Cherokees” (Macmillan, 1931). He spent several weeks examining relevant materials in the files of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions at the Andover-Harvard Theological Library to complete it. The Pulitzer Prize nomination for that book accelerated his career, though he did not win the award which went to General Pershing’s memoirs.

In this book he described the Brainerd mission, named for David Brainerd, a missionary to the Leni Lenape Indians. All that remains of that mission today is a cemetery near Eastgate Town Center. The mission gave its name to both Brainerd Road and the part of Chattanooga known as Brainerd. Walker published several articles on the mission and organized a cleanup and a memorial service at the site.

Today, the mission is commemorated in an annual event sponsored by the Daughters of the American Revolution, current owners of the cemetery.

One of Walkers scrapbooks, “The Brainerd Mission: A Collection of Magazine and Newspaper Articles”, is archived at the Chattanooga Public Library. The scrapbook includes a previous shorter work titled “A Brief Story of an Old Mission”. As noted in the text, Cokesbury Press of Nashville published it in serial format.

“Torchlights to the Cherokees” was a springboard for Walker’s literary efforts. He rode this wave of success to publish a young adult novel, “The Beechblock Circus” and a collection of short stories, “Eating Thunder and Other Stories”.

He was unable to publish these two works before the nomination. He then also published two additional books of poetry, and a series of booklets promoting the City of Chattanooga and its economic growth.

In 1933, the Cumberlands Hiking Club, which Walker stated he founded, published “Outdoors in the Cumberlands”. Members of the club authored articles on geology, archaeology, fungi, wildflowers, and other natural features found along the trails.

Robert Sparks Walker edited the book as well as wrote the introduction and four of the chapters. Library catalogs list him as an “other author.” The Cumberlands Hiking Club continued to offer hiking and volunteer opportunities for several years.

One of Walkers promotional booklets for the city appeared in 1939. The Chattanooga Community Association published “Opportunity for Health, Happiness, and Prosperity in the Chattanooga District” and it includes extensive photography.

He returned to book length nonfiction in 1941 with “Lookout: The Story of a Mountain” which begins with the geology of the mountain and continues through human habitation. Another book length work, “As the Indians Left It” included charming stories of childhood life on the farm and documents the early days of the Chattanooga Audubon Society and the sanctuary. The introduction includes his boyhood memories of sighting passenger pigeons, a species which became extinct during his lifetime.

His third book of poetry, “When God Failed” revisits the religious topics of “Anchor Poems” and begins with a poem in which he describes himself and his son Wendell visiting his wife Sarah’s grave shortly after her death.

They find solace in wildflowers growing on a hillside nearby. It ends with a poem about his expected reunion with his family after his death.

Walker’s final book of poetry was “State Flowers and State Birds: Being an Authentic Record of the Official Flowers and Birds of all the States of America”, published in 1950. He later added poems about the state birds and flowers of the newly added states, Alaska and Hawaii. The revised edition appeared in 1960, making it his last published book.

Walker also assisted in the production of at least one nature film and produced several “Illustrated Slide Talks.” He made numerous radio and television appearances.

Walker was a meticulous keeper of scrapbooks. Mary Bell Fisher mentions having examined “The Walker Scrapbooks” in her 1938 thesis for the Master of Arts Degree at Peabody College of Education. A typewritten copy of the thesis is shelved in the local history department of the Chattanooga Public Library.

I have been fortunate to have examined the Southern Fruit Grower scrapbook at the Tennessee State Library and Archives in Nashville. A guard provided a key to a locker since no extraneous items are permitted in the archival portion of the library. Pencils are permitted and the archivist provided a pair of white cotton gloves to minimize the impact of examining the document and loose-leaf paper for notes, one sheet at a time.

The scrapbook includes correspondence Walker received relevant to his role as editor and publisher of the Southern Fruit Grower magazine. The letters offered thanks for copies received, as well as accolades stating how the magazine had benefitted the recipients in business.

A few included subscription renewals, many from government agencies  which stated the value of the magazine for agriculture and horticulture in their respective states. Those from academic institutions stated its value for their students. One of the correspondents was noted agriculturist Luther Burbank.

For further information on the years Walker spent editing Southern Fruit Grower, consult the early chapters of “Robert Sparks Walker: The Unconventional Life of an East Tennessee Naturalist” by his granddaughter, Alexandra Walker Clark.

According to this biography, Walker was born in the log cabin on the property now known as Audubon Acres. He is buried near that cabin, with his wife Sarah Elberta Clark Walker (1892–1924) and son Robert Sparks Walker, Jr (1907–1915).

Robert Sparks Walker and Sarah Elberta Clark were married in 1904. Sarah’s death in 1924 made Walker the single parent of their second son, Wendell Clark Walker (1909–1988), then aged fourteen years.

In 1960, Walker suffered a heart attack while leading a nature walk on the Audubon Acres property. He was taken to his home where he received medical care but then he died the following day at age eighty-two.