Harold McCracken (1894–1983) was an American writer, Alaskan grizzly bear hunter, biplane stunt photographer, cinematographer, producer and museum director.
[1] He was a noted explorer, who led expeditions in the 1920s tracing the possibility of a long-ago land bridge between Siberia and Alaska.
The first expedition was intended to obtain several big game specimens for a museum at Ohio State University.
[3] McCracken, who was then living at 318 Warwick Avenue in Douglaston, New York and completing a book on artist George Catlin, was persuaded to transform an empty building donated by Gertrude Vanderbilt-Whitney in 1959 into the spectacular Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming.
McCracken retired from the Buffalo Bill Museum in 1974, and continued to live with his family, within sight of the historical center, until his death in 1983.