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Bald eagle soars to national designation on Minnesota man's wings

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Published  December 27, 2024 5:24pm CST
Minnesota
FOX 9

Bald eagle wasn’t America’s national bird, until now

The latest MN and US headlines.

The Brief

    • The bald eagle became the American national bird on Christmas Eve when President Biden signed a bill written by a Minnesota man.
    • Preston Cook collects eagle memorabilia and his collection of more than 40,000 pieces is in a wing and a warehouse of the National Eagle Center in Wabasha.
    • Cook's eagle research led to the discovery that the bald eagle wasn't our national bird, so he wrote a simple bill giving eagles the designation. He got bipartisan support and sponsorship from Sen. Amy Klobuchar, (D-Minnesota), and Rep. Brad Finstad, (R-Minnesota).

WABASHA, Minn. - The United States has used the bald eagle as a national symbol since George Washington was president. But it only became the national bird this week, and only after a Minnesota man caught the oversight.

An American symbol 

The assumptions: Bald eagles are perched on our government seals, our military uniforms, and even our money.

So most of us thought the eagle was the national bird.

"My assumption was that it always had been," said Josh Post of La Crosse, WI, as his family visited the National Eagle Center in Wabasha.

But as the Eagles sang: you can’t hide your lyin’ eyes.

"(A family member) told me that it just happened on Tuesday," Post said.

Who made it happen?

One man's mission: President Biden signed it into law, but Preston Cook made it happen.

"You can't have too many eagles," Cook said as he roamed the bald eagle exhibition he donated to the center.

Over 58 years of spreading his wings as a collector, he’s accumulated more than 40,000 eagle items.

Everything from one of Gen. Colin Powell’s presidential medals of freedom -- "it has five eagles," Cook noted -- to a big plaster of Paris eagle bust.

"It was on Franklin Delano Roosevelt's third inauguration platform," Cook said.

He donated the collection to the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, where they fill a wing and a warehouse.

And he moved to Minnesota to be near them.

A strange discovery

Everyday eagles: The population of eagles in the United States has kind of mirrored his collection: At first, there were hardly any. They were an endangered species. These days, there are a lot of them and every day he comes to work, he sees them.

But as he researched one of his books about eagles, he realized the American symbol of freedom and strength had never been designated its national bird.

"I wrote a very simple bill that did one thing: 'It is our national bird'," Cook said. "And that was that was it."

Overlooked no more

Smooth soaring?: It took a year and a day, but the bill passed without opposition.

"You know, it has a left wing," Cook said. "It has a right wing. It has a body in the middle. So it represents all Americans."

Cook says he’s happy with the results and so are most Americans.

But if he had a baseball card collection, the eagle may have never landed in its proper place.

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