Draper, Don

Don (Harry Dewey) Draper (1899-1989), the twelfth of thirteen children of James and Mary E. Draper, was born and raised in Maryland. He earned a civil engineering degree from Tri-State College of Engineering, Angola, Indiana, in 1926, and worked as an engineer in Alaska, for the Fairbanks Exploration Company, the Alaska Road Commission, and others, from the late 1920s until his retirement in the early 1960s. In retirement he was a guide and trapper and kept meticulous notes on the wildlife and native plants in the vicinity of his Chatanika River cabin at 40 Mile Steese Highway.