William Gambel

1823–1849 (age 26)

Naturalist

Biography

William Gambel, born in Philadelphia in 1823, was a keen naturalist who pressed westward with explorers and collected the birds and plants of the American borderlands.

Though his journey ended in 1849, his field notes and specimens, remembered in species names like Gambel's quail, continue to teach us about the West's wild life.