W.J. McGee

(1853 - 1912)

Having spent a decade conducting geological surveys for the U.S. federal government, W.J. McGee was hired in 1893 to run the newly formed Bureau of American Ethnology. He was one of the first researchers to study the southwestern corner of what was at the time the Arizona territory, writing of Death Valley as a place where “thirst abides,” in which “the ‘last water’ and ‘next water’ are ever present and dominant ideas.”