Walker Van Riper (1887-1960) was born in Sedalia, Missouri on March 9, 1887. After receiving an A.B. at Yale University in 1909 he was Secretary at the American Trust Company, St. Louis, Missouri 1909-1912, and received a B.L. from St. Louis University in 1912. He came west in 1912 for health reasons and taught Banking and Investments at Colorado College from 1914-1915, and Investment Banking in Denver from 1915-1925. From 1926 until his retirement in 1943, he was an Investment Analyst at Colorado National Bank in Denver. Mr. Van Riper was a very keenly interested naturalist. Following his retirement he became the Curator of Spiders and Insects at the Denver Museum of Natural History at the salary of $1.00 per year. This collection of his papers relates only to his interests as a naturalist. He was particularly interested in the photography of natural subjects. He specialized in the photography of rattlesnakes, hummingbirds and spiders and wrote accompanying texts. From a technical photographic standpoint he was involved in the early use of the high-speed electronic flash, or strobe light, invented by Harold E. Edgerton of M.I.T., whom he knew and with whom he did photographic work on the hummingbird.
From the guide to the Walker Van Riper Collection, 1887-1960, (University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries. Archives Dept.)
