Walter L. Fisher

{{Infobox officeholder |name = Walter Fisher |image = Walter L. Fisher cph.3a00307.jpg |office = 25th United States Secretary of the Interior |president = William Howard Taft |term_start = March 13, 1911 |term_end = March 5, 1913 |predecessor = Richard Ballinger |successor = Franklin Knight Lane |birth_name = Walter Lowrie Fisher |birth_date = {{birth date|1862|7|4}} |birth_place = Wheeling, Virginia {{small|(now West Virginia, U.S.)}} |death_date = {{death date and age|1935|11|9|1862|7|4}} |death_place = Winnetka, Illinois, U.S. |party = Republican |spouse = Mabel Taylor |education = Hanover College {{small|(BA)}} }} '''Walter Lowrie Fisher''' (July 4, 1862 – November 9, 1935) was United States Secretary of the Interior under President William Howard Taft from 1911 to 1913.

Fisher was born July 4, 1862, in Wheeling, Virginia, to Daniel Webster Fisher (1838 – 1913), a Presbyterian minister, and his wife Amanda D. Kouns († 1911). Educated at Hanover College in Indiana from which he graduated in 1883. While at Hanover, he was initiated into the Chi chapter of the Sigma Chi fraternity. In 1890, he was elected as the fifth Grand Consul (the National President) of the Sigma Chi Fraternity, a position he held until 1892. He married Mabel Taylor on April 22, 1891, and they had five sons and two daughters.

In 1906, he was appointed by Chicago mayor Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne to serve as Special Traction Counsel, a role in which he would assist the mayor in addressing the city's traction issue.<ref name=sullivan1>{{cite book |last1=Morton |first1=Richard Allen |title=Roger C. Sullivan and the Making of the Chicago Democratic Machine, 1881-1908 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xA7MDAAAQBAJ |publisher=McFarland |access-date=11 May 2020 |pages=178 |language=en |isbn=9781476623788 |date=29 June 2016 |archive-date=3 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200803013812/https://books.google.com/books?id=xA7MDAAAQBAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> He resigned the following year after Dunne rejected his advice to accept the Settlement Ordinances that had passed in the Chicago City Council.<ref name="cleanup">{{cite book |last1=Schmidt |first1=John R. |title="The Mayor Who Cleaned Up Chicago" A Political Biography of William E. Dever |date=1989 |publisher=Northern Illinois University Press |location=DeKalb, Illinois }}</ref>

His papers, covering his professional and political careers and containing 14,000 items, are in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://beta.worldcat.org/archivegrid/collection/data/84920409|title=ArchiveGrid : Walter L. Fisher papers, 1871-1963.|access-date=12 November 2016|archive-date=13 November 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161113041024/https://beta.worldcat.org/archivegrid/collection/data/84920409|url-status=live}}</ref>

Fisher had a brother, Dr. Howard Lowrie Fisher, who established a hospital for war victims in France during World War I. He survived the sinking of the ''RMS Lusitania'' in 1915 by jumping off the ship.

Dr. Fisher died November 9, 1935, in Winnetka, Illinois.

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== *{{Commons category-inline}}

{{S-start}} {{S-off}} {{U.S. Cabinet official box |before= Richard Achilles Ballinger |after= Franklin Knight Lane |years= 1911–1913 |president= William Howard Taft |department= Secretary of the Interior}} {{S-end}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fisher, Walter L.}} Category:1862 births Category:1935 deaths Category:Politicians from Wheeling, West Virginia Category:United States secretaries of the interior Category:Hanover College alumni Category:Taft administration cabinet members Category:20th-century American politicians Category:West Virginia Republicans