Harry Lawton(1927-2005)
- Writer
- Location Management
Born on December 11, 1927, Harry Lawton grew up in Long Beach,
California where he developed a passion for reading and writing during
childhood. After high school, Lawton enrolled at University of
California in Berkeley to study Journalism. There, he also wrote for
its newspapers and magazines. Always a visionary, he opened the famous
Haunted Bookstore in Berkeley, which specialized in rare Western
Americana. Harry then moved to Riverside where he was hired as a
reporter for The Press-Enterprise. While writing for the newspaper, he
got interested in a story about Willie Boy, a Pauite-Chemehuevi Indian
who falls into a forbidden love story. The tragic true story got
Lawton's attention immediately. He then spent the next three years
researching on the Morongo Indian Reservation in the California Desert.
The result became the award winning novel "Willie Boy: a Desert
Manhunt" (1960) which was later made into a movie,
Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969),
starring Robert Redford.
Enormously respected by his fellow writers, Lawton was very active in
the preservation of the Native American Community. He helped found the
California Museum of Photography; The Malki Museum, and also the Malki
Press, a non-profit organization responsible for publishing books about
Native Americans in California. He founded the Creative Writing Program
and the Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology at
University of California. Lawton died on November 20, 2005 in Dana
Point, California. A month later a celebration of his life was held in
Riverside, honoring his great contribution to the California History.