Julius Sterling Morton, a horticulturist born in Michigan, is inducted for many public contributions including Arbor Day.

Morton immigrated to the Nebraska Territory in 1854. There, he found the landscape an almost treeless prairie. By the 1900s, his efforts established Nebraska as a state of fruit-bearing trees and shaded homes.

Morton began his public legacy as editor of the first permanent newspaper in Nebraska. He was elected to the Territorial Legislature in 1855, served as the Territorial Secretary from 1858 to 1861, and as Acting Governor of Nebraska for a few months before Nebraska became a state in 1867.

As member of the State Horticultural Society and chairman of the State Board of Agriculture, Morton urged declaration of April 10, 1872 as a day “consecrated for tree planting.” More than one million trees were planted in Nebraska on that first Arbor Day. The date of tree planting was made permanent in Nebraska in 1874 and has since been observed on Morton’s birth date, April 22nd of each year.

In 1892, President Grover Cleveland appointed Morton as National Secretary of Agriculture. Morton established forward-thinking business practices, expanded Civil Service in the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and added new national offices, including the Weather Bureau and Foreign Market departments.

Although Arbor Day seems to be Morton’s most enduring achievement, he also made an indelible mark on the economic and political development of Nebraska and the nation. He died April 27, 1902 and is buried near his Nebraska City, Nebraska home where more than two hundred and thirty species of trees and shrubs grow, many planted by his hand.