William Dawson was born on 20 February 1873 at Leon, a small county seat in southern Iowa just north of the Missouri state line.
[1][2][3] He was the only child of William E. and Ada Eliza Sarah (née Adams) Dawson and would spend his early years living in Iowa, Kansas, Ohio and Washington state.
In California, Dawson, a proponent of using bird motifs in art, maintained a studio at Los Colibris in Mission Canyon near Santa Barbara where he displayed his extensive Oology and photographic collection.
[8] Dawson served as the museum's first director until 1925 when Ralph Hoffmann, a natural history teacher and amateur ornithologist, was named to replace him.
[17] William Leon Dawson died at White Cross Hospital in Columbus, Ohio on 30 April 1928 after a short bout with influenza that had worsened into pneumonia.