Burroughs Audubon Nature Club of Rochester Records

The national Burroughs Nature Club was a project of a publishing house that printed the John Burroughs Riverside Edition series of nature books. Unsatisfied with the limited course of learning provided by the series and the overly commercial aspects of the publisher-sponsored associated club, Rochesterian William B. Hoot reached out to all other owners of the series in Rochester in June 1913, asking if they would be interested in forming a local Burroughs Nature Club. Following two initial meetings in Hoot’s business office (Hoot was an elementary school teacher turned successful bakery executive known as “Hoot the bird man.”), the club formally organized in a meeting at the Reynolds Library on June 26, 1913. Hoot was named the club’s first president, a role he held until 1930.

The Burroughs Nature Club was an immediate success, holding six meetings in members’ homes by the end of 1913 while also taking up political lobbying for environmental protections. The club’s success led to Hoot being invited to meet John Burroughs at his Woodchuck Lodge in 1914. The next year, 1915, saw the club affiliate with the National Association of Audubon Societies, requiring a revised name: Burroughs Audubon Nature Club. The club continued to grow over the next decade despite lacking a formal home: Those meetings not held in nature were at the Reynolds Library until 1922, then at the Municipal Museum. In 1926, the club started seeking land for a bird sanctuary; this led to the purchase of a 30-acre farm at Railroad Mills that the club called its “Conservation Station” in 1927. While regular meetings continued to be at the Municipal Museum, by 1930 the Conservation Station farmhouse was converted to a clubhouse.

This state of affairs continued for the next twenty-plus years, with the Burroughs Audubon Nature Club becoming a regular part of the Municipal Museum’s meeting schedule and strong supporters of its natural history work. The Club also fought to preserve Pinnacle Hill from development in the years after World War II. As time went on, meetings in Rochester moved back into members’ homes, with the club emphasizing the need to preserve its sanctuary as the focus of its resources. Unfortunately, on September 29, 1978, the historic clubhouse was destroyed by fire. The club lost its natural history collection, library, and archives in the blaze. A new clubhouse opened in 1981.

As of the time of this writing (2022), the Burroughs Audubon Nature Club continues to operate, maintaining both the Railroad Mills sanctuary and a 90-acre property in Dansville, NY given to the club in 1984. The club has a stable membership, but is having some struggles with the aging infrastructure of its now 40+ year old clubhouse.