Martin Miller papers, 1942-1987

Martin Miller was an architect, poet, and conservationist. He attended Highline High School in Seattle, graduating in 1942. In the 1980s, he received media attention when he placed his 30-acre timber estate near Carnation, Washington in a conservation easement, where specific development rights and restrictions were detailed in a legal document and the easement was given to a government agency, which in this case was the state Game Department. In doing so, Miller protected his land by giving up his rights such as timber cutting, subdivision, road construction, hunting, and use of herbicides. Miller wanted to live in his private forest without fear that someday his heirs might erect condominiums on his Tolt River shoreline. On September 5, 1987, he was strangled to death by a neighbor just outside his Carnation, Washington home. Miller left the bulk of his estate to the Seattle Audubon Society, but with restrictions that they were to establish a fund and use its earnings to buy land to be conserved in perpetuity. In late 1987, the Seattle Audubon Society established the Martin Miller Fund, which is still used to purchase critical habitat for preservation.