Walter L. Fisher

Walter Lowrie Fisher (July 4, 1862 – November 9, 1935) was United States Secretary of the Interior under President William Howard Taft from 1911 to 1913.

Walter Fisher
25th United States Secretary of the Interior
In office March 13, 1911 – March 5, 1913
President	William Howard Taft
Preceded by	Richard Ballinger
Succeeded by	Franklin Knight Lane
Personal details
Born	Walter Lowrie Fisher July 4, 1862 Wheeling, Virginia, U.S. (now West Virginia)
Died	November 9, 1935 (aged 73) Winnetka, Illinois, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Mabel Taylor
Education	Hanover College (BA)

Fisher was born July 4, 1862 in Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia) to Daniel Webster Fisher (1838 – 1913), a Presbyterian minister, and his wife Amanda D. Kouns († 1911). Educated at Hanover College in Indiana from which he graduated in 1883. While at Hanover, he was initiated into the Chi Chapter of the Sigma Chi fraternity. In 1890, he was elected as the fifth Grand Consul (the National President) of the Sigma Chi Fraternity, a position he held until 1892. He married Mabel Taylor on April 22, 1891 and they had five sons and two daughters.

In 1906, he was appointed by Chicago mayor Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne to serve as Special Traction Counsel, a role in which he would assist the mayor in addressing the city's traction issue.[1] He resigned the following year after Dunne rejected his advice to accept the Settlement Ordinances that had passed in the Chicago City Council.[2]

His papers, covering his professional and political careers and containing 14,000 items, are in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.[3]

Fisher had a brother, Dr. Howard Lowrie Fisher, who established a hospital for war victims in France during World War I. He survived the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in 1915 by jumping off the ship.

Dr. Fisher died November 9, 1935 in Winnetka, Illinois.

References

1. Morton, Richard Allen (29 June 2016). Roger C. Sullivan and the Making of the Chicago Democratic Machine, 1881-1908. McFarland. p. 178. ISBN 9781476623788. Archived from the original on 3 August 2020. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
2. Schmidt, John R. (1989). "The Mayor Who Cleaned Up Chicago" A Political Biography of William E. Dever. DeKalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press.
3. "ArchiveGrid : Walter L. Fisher papers, 1871-1963". Archived from the original on 13 November 2016. Retrieved 12 November 2016.

External links

• Media related to Walter L. Fisher at Wikimedia Commons