William Leon Dawson was born in Iowa in 1873. The son of a pastor, Dawson originally determined to follow in his father’s footsteps. He received his degree from the Oberlin Theological Seminary and became a Congregationalist minister. Yet he was increasingly drawn to another field for his life’s work, that of natural science, specifically the study of birds.
Even while ministering in Columbus, Ohio, he engaged in this new passion, the result being the publication of The Birds of Ohio in 1903. A few years later, he moved to Seattle, his pastoral duties abandoned in favor of a full-time career as an ornithologist. While in the Pacific Northwest, he produced The Birds of Washington in 1909.
By 1912, Dawson had settled in Santa Barbara, in a home on Puesta del Sol he christened Los Colibris, The Hummingbirds. He had two dreams: to pen a massive tome on California birds and to establish an institution devoted to oology, the study of birds’ eggs. Gathering a cadre of supporters at his home, in January 1916 the Museum of Comparative Oology was born, to be housed in two small buildings on Dawson’s property, the core of the collection to be Dawson’s own impressive array of birds’ eggs.