n "Oil Fields in the Arctic," a 1944 article in Harper's Magazine, Pratt predicted the presence of vast oil reserves in Alaska's Prudhoe Bay area; he was finally proven correct in 1968, when Humble and Atlantic Richfield made the first major discovery in the Alaskan North Slope. Such achievements brought him a full measure of success. In 1924 he was elected to the Humble board of directors, and in 1933 he became a vice president of the company. In 1937 he left Humble and moved to New York to become a director and member of the executive committee of Standard Oil of New Jersey, and in 1942, the same year he became a vice president of Standard, he wrote Oil in the Earth, an examination of the oil business intended for a lay audience. He retired from Standard in 1946 and spent three years in Washington, D.C., as a special assistant to the chairman of the National Security Resources Board and then as a consultant to the Atomic Energy Commission. He returned to Texas in 1949.
Pratt was not just a successful oilman, however; he was also an environmentalist. He urged wide spacing of oil and gas wells, deplored the flaring of natural gas, and sought controls to prevent water pollution by tankers and refineries. He is likely to be best remembered, however, for his role in the establishment of Guadalupe Mountains National Park. He had first seen the mountains in 1920, when he and some friends drove the ninety-five miles from Pecos in a Model-T Ford. Pratt immediately fell in love with the Guadalupes and began buying land in McKittrick Canyon. Eventually he acquired 5,632 acres, and in 1930 the Houston architect John F. Staub built a stone house for Pratt near the mouth of the canyon. After Pratt returned to Texas in 1949, he lived there with his second wife, the former Iris Calderhead, although he continued to commute by private airplane to Carlsbad, New Mexico, where he had a consulting business. In 1961 he deeded his land in McKittrick Canyon to the National Park Service, stipulating that a park be established in the Guadalupes. Four years later, due to Iris Pratt's failing health, the Pratts moved to Tucson, Arizona. After years of delays the park finally opened to the public in 1972.
Pratt received many professional honors during his lifetime. He was a founding member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists in 1917 and served as president in 1920. He was honored three times by that organization: in 1945 he became the first recipient of the Sidney Powers Memorial Medal for distinguished contributions to the field, he was made an honorary member in 1958, and in 1972 he received a gold medal for Service Through Geology to Human Needs in recognition of his donation of his land in the Guadalupes. Pratt received the Anthony F. Lucas Gold Medal from the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers in 1948, the James Furman Kemp Medal from Columbia University in 1950, and the American Petroleum Institute Gold Medal in 1954. He was also a member of the Society of Economic Geologists, Sigma Xi, and an honorary member of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists. He was elected to the Permian Basin Hall of Fame in 1969, and in 1973 a geophysics professorship was established in his name at the University of Texas at Austin. He married Pearl M. Stuckey on December 30, 1912. They had three children. After his first wife's death he married Iris Calderhead on January 3, 1941; after Iris Pratt's death, shortly after their move to Tucson, Pratt married Suzanne d'Autremont, on November 4, 1966. He died at the age of ninety-six on Christmas Day, 1981, survived by his third wife and his three children from his first marriage.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:W. L. Copithorne, "The Worlds of Wallace Pratt," The Lamp, Fall 1971. Who Was Who in America, Vol. 7.
Image Use Disclaimer
All copyrighted materials included within the Handbook of Texas Online are in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 related to Copyright and “Fair Use” for Non-Profit educational institutions, which permits the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA), to utilize