The Craighead Family
South Middleton Township, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
The 1886 house and surroundings were an inspiration to this family. Brothers Frank and Eugene became prominent entomologists. Frank's nationally known conservationist sons, John and Frank, Jr., saved Yellowstone's grizzlies, popularized falconry, inspired the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, and contributed to National Geographic. Newbery-winning daughter Jean Craighead George wrote nature books Julie of the Wolves and My Side of the Mountain.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
From an 1886 house in the rolling country south of Carlisle came a remarkable American family whose lives orbited the natural world. Brothers Frank and Eugene Craighead earned national reputations as entomologists, and Frank's twin sons carried the work into wild landscapes—studying and helping save Yellowstone's grizzly bears, championing falconry, and lending their voices to the movement that became the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. The family's most famous member, Jean Craighead George, turned that same intimacy with nature into beloved books like 'Julie of the Wolves' and 'My Side of the Mountain.'
Why it matters
The Craigheads bridged rigorous field science and popular imagination, shaping both American conservation policy and how generations of children came to understand the wild.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
The house at the heart of this marker was built in 1886, in the rolling country south of Carlisle, Pennsylvania — a landscape of ridges, streams, and woodland at the edge of the Cumberland Valley. It was the kind of place where a family could grow up with the natural world close at hand, within easy reach of fields, water, and wild things.
The decades that followed, running through the twentieth century, were a turning point in how Americans thought about nature. The country was industrializing and its wild places were shrinking, and out of that tension grew a powerful conservation movement — a conviction that the nation's rivers, forests, and wildlife were treasures worth studying and protecting, not just resources to be used up.
This was also the great age of the popular naturalist, when scientific fieldwork, magazine storytelling, photography, and children's literature could all draw from the same deep well of curiosity about the living world. The Craigheads, shaped by the home and surroundings this marker celebrates, would work in nearly every one of those channels.
People & events
The story begins with brothers Frank and Eugene, who both became prominent entomologists — scientists of the insect world — carrying the family's fascination with living things into serious professional study. But it was the next generation that captured the national imagination.
Frank's sons, John and Frank Jr., became nationally known conservationists whose fieldwork left a real mark on American life. The marker credits them with helping to save Yellowstone's grizzly bears, with popularizing falconry, with inspiring the movement that led to the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, and with contributing to National Geographic — the magazine that brought the wild to millions of living rooms. Theirs was science lived outdoors, in close, sometimes dangerous contact with the animals and rivers they studied.
And then there is Jean Craighead George, the Newbery-winning daughter, who translated that same intimacy with nature into books beloved by generations of children. Julie of the Wolves and My Side of the Mountain gave young readers stories of survival and kinship with the wild that felt utterly real — because they came from a family that had genuinely lived them.
Its place in the American story
The Craigheads matter because they connected two things that too often stay apart: rigorous field science and the public's imagination. The same family that studied grizzlies and rivers with a scientist's discipline also knew how to tell the country a story about why those things were worth saving.
Their fingerprints are on American conservation policy itself. The marker ties them to the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, a landmark commitment to keeping certain rivers flowing free and undammed, and to the long effort to protect Yellowstone's grizzlies — work that helped shape how the nation cares for its most iconic wild places.
At the same time, through Jean Craighead George's books and the family's contributions to National Geographic, the Craigheads helped form how ordinary Americans — especially children — came to understand the wild. A kid who reads about a boy living off the land, or a girl among wolves, and then grows up to value wilderness is part of the Craighead legacy just as surely as any policy.
If you visit
The pull of this place is the idea that a single house and its surroundings could seed so many lives devoted to nature. Stand near the 1886 home and take in the setting the marker points to — the land itself was the family's first classroom, and it's worth letting your eye follow the terrain the way a young naturalist's might have.
This is a marker that rewards readers. If you or your kids have grown up with My Side of the Mountain or Julie of the Wolves, the stop takes on a quiet thrill: you're at the wellspring of that sensibility, the ground where a love of wild things became a family calling.
Set in South Middleton Township near Carlisle, it fits naturally into a Cumberland Valley outing built around the outdoors — the streams, ridges, and open country of the region echo the world the Craigheads spent their lives exploring. Come ready to look closely at ordinary nature; that, more than anything, is what this family teaches.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Plan your visit
NearbyMake a day of it — museums, food, and places to stay near this marker.
Museums & culture
- Ye Olde Sulphur Spa Historical Society9.8 mi away
- Appalachian Trail Museum10.7 mi away
Places data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Hours and details change — call ahead.
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Related people
- · Frank Craighead
- · John Craighead
- · Jean Craighead George
Themes & tags
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