George W. Whitmore Collection

George W Whitmore was born in Fresno California on February 8, 1931. His family lived throughout different parts of the San Joaquin Valley. He completed highschools and a year of community college in Salinas and enrolled in the University of San Francisco's pharmacy school. While there, Whitmore developed an interest in mountaineering by joining his fraternity brothers in climbs around the Bay Area. Following in the footsteps of his father, Whitmore signed up for ROTC training in Berkeley and completed with the rank of second lieutenant in the Air Force. He graduated from pharmacy school in 1954 and was stationed in South Carolina to work as an aeronautical evacuation officer. Whitmore would make his mark on history in October of 1958 by joining Warren Harding and Wayne Merry on their climb of "the Nose" of El Capitan in Yosemite. Whitmore was given the difficult task of bringing up supplies to Harding and Merry. In 1953, inspired by his experience mountaineering, Whitmore joined the newly formed Tehipite Chapter of the Sierra Club. While there he used his mountaineering skills to study wild areas of the Sierra Nevada for conservation purposes. At his time in the Sierra Club, Whitmore served in numerous leadership positions in local, state and national capacities. With his work with the Sierra Club he was to successfully lobby for the protection of Kaiser Wilderness and establish the California Wilderness Act of 1984. He was also involved in the protection of Mineral King from The Walt Disney Company in the 1960s and 1970s.