William E. Scripps
As Son of James E. Scripps, founder of the Detroit (Evening) News, William E. Scripps (1882 - 1952) was heir to a publishing fortune. He preferred engineering, and science to improve people's lives. Scripps was fascinated by early twentieth-century technologies. He built a motorized boat engine, formed the Scripps-Booth Motor Car Company with his nephew James Scripps Booth, and started the first commercial radio station in the U.S., Detroit's WWJ. He taught himself to fly an airplane in 1912 and was one of the first to own one. Using aviation to improve news delivery, he published some of the earliest aerial newspaper photos. Scripps was also devoted to conservation and land reclamation. In 1916 he began buying land for Wildwood Farms.