Background
Wilds Preston Richardson was born on March 20, 1861 in Hunt County, Texas, the son of Oliver Preston and Hester Foster (Wingo) Richardson.
Wilds Preston Richardson was born on March 20, 1861 in Hunt County, Texas, the son of Oliver Preston and Hester Foster (Wingo) Richardson.
After some years of schooling he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point in the summer of 1880 and was graduated, a second lieutenant of the 8th Infantry, on June 15, 1884.
His early service was in garrison in California and in frontier duty in the Apache country and in western Nebraska. He became a first lieutenant on December 16, 1889, and for six years (1892 - 97) was an instructor in tactics at West Point. In August 1897, he was ordered to Alaska, where, except for a few brief details elsewhere, he was to remain for twenty years. He became a captain on April 26, 1898, and a major on April 7, 1904. In March 1905, he was made president of the newly authorized United States Alaska Roads Commission and put in charge of the government's extensive construction project for that Territory. His chief work was the building of the Richardson Highway, from Valdez, on the southern coast, to Fairbanks, at the head of navigation on the Tanana River, a distance of 380 miles. He had become a lieutenant-colonel in 1911 and a colonel in 1914.
On August 5, 1917, he was made a brigadier-general in the National Army, and in March 1918, he was assigned to the command of the 78th Infantry Brigade, 39th Division, then at Camp Beauregard, Louisiana. With his division he arrived at Brest on September 3, in time to take part in some of the closing movements of the war. He was next assigned to the command of the American forces at Murmansk, in northern Russia, where he arrived early in April 1919. For his part in this difficult and trying situation he was awarded, on April 14, 1922, the Distinguished Service Medal.
On August 24 he left Murmansk and in October was again in the United States.
With the mustering out of the National Army he was returned to the rank of colonel, and on October 31, 1920, was retired at his own request. Thereafter he made his home at the Army and Navy Club, Washington, D. C.
In January 1928, he published in the Atlantic Monthly, an article on Alaska which aroused some controversy. In April 1929, he was taken ill and conveyed to the Walter Reed Hospital, where, a month later, he died. The body was interred at West Point. Two sisters survived him.
He was a man of exceptional height and bulk, with noticeably large hands and feet. His manner was friendly, and it has been said of him that he was "one of the best-loved men in the United States Army". He was a strict disciplinarian, though a kindly one, and he was noted for his sympathy and generosity.
He was unmarried.
