The Lucius Burch Center
Mission and Goal
Statement
The Center's mission is to promote understanding between people
of diverse backgrounds by fostering an appreciation of the land,
history, and traditions of the different ethnic, cultural, and working
communities of the Greater Yellowstone Region.
Currently our goal is to provide an educational venue and
study center that:
- focuses on the past and present of the Mountain Indians of
the Greater Yellowstone: the Mountain Crow, Mountain Shoshone
(Sheep Eaters and Salmon Eaters), Salish/Kootenai and others who
were the original inhabitants of the inner- mountain west, defined
by the intersection of northwest Wyoming, southern Montana and
eastern Idaho
- supports historical and cultural preservation work on Wyoming's
Wind River Indian Reservation;
- supports The Wyoming Heritage Project, a state-wide educational
imitative to bring the study of local and regional history, archaeology,
natural resources, and folk arts into the classroom;
- promotes, in partnership with the Wyoming Department of Game
and Fish, youth education in wildlife conservation, geology, archaeology,
and environmental history, for grades 4-12, at the Center's summer
field camp, Trail Lake Ranch.
Lucius Burch
 Lucius
Burch was an avid outdoorsman and conservationist, distinguished
lawyer, and ardent believer in the worth of the individual. A hiker,
mountain climber, and fisherman who loved the solitude and beauty
of wild country, he spent nearly twenty summers walking and riding
through the Absaroka and Wind River Mountains of northwest Wyoming.
Burch Peak in the Wind River Range is named for him.
To friends and students who joined his informal expeditions, he
imparted not only his feeling for wilderness and wildlife but also
an appreciation of those who lived and worked in the region. Both
were integral to the land he grew to love.
Lucius was born on a farm in the bend of the Cumberland River.
His father was the Dean of Vanderbilt University’s Medical
School and his family included the founders of the cities of Nashville
and Charlotte and Presidents James K. Polk and Andrew Jackson. Lucius
participated with enthusiasm in all of life’s pursuits, excelling
in boxing, shooting, scuba diving, and underwater exploration.
As a conservationist, Lucius was the first chairman of the Tennessee
Game and Fish Commission. He wrote its Model Law, ensuring that
the Commission’s funding and policy were separated from the
personal agendas of state politicians. As a lawyer, he was an active
civil rights leader. The first white member of Memphis’ NAACP,
Lucius represented Martin Luther King, Jr. in court on the day of
his assassination.
Lucius gave things away, including endowments to universities and
land to protect wildlife habitat, gifts that reflect his lifelong
commitment to education and the land. Since his death in 1996, this
legacy of giving has continued through the establishment of foundations
that support the causes he championed in Tennessee, his home state,
and Wyoming, the places he loved best.
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