The Walter Koelz papers document Koelz's travel and work in South Asia and the Middle East in the 1930s and 1940s, as well as his life in Michigan, both before and after traveling abroad. The collection has been divided into seven series: Biographical and Personal, Correspondence, Topical File, Journals, Writings, Estate Materials, and Visual Materials.
Walter Koelz was born in Waterloo, Michigan on September 11, 1895. The son of a blacksmith, Koelz attended Olivet College and received his doctoral degree in zoology with a specialization in ichthyology from the University of Michigan in 1920. Also fascinated by natural history, ornithology and botany, Koelz represented the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries as a naturalist on the MacMillan-Byrd Arctic Expedition in 1925. The Arctic trip marked the beginning of Koelz's affinity for travel. He wrote an article about the experience for the National Geographic magazine and artifacts he collected on the expedition now reside in the Museum of Anthropology in Ann Arbor.
In 1927, Koelz resigned his government appointment to move to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to be with a close friend who had tuberculosis. After his friend's death, Koelz returned to Ann Arbor where he worked as a Lloyd Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Michigan during the 1927/28 academic year. Also at this time, he was appointed State Ichthyologist of Michigan. In 1930, Koelz accepted an appointment at a Himilayan research institute run by Russian expatriate Nicholas Roerich. He arrived in Naggar, Kulu, in Northern India and began working for Roerich in May of 1930. Koelz collected botanical and ornithological material for the Kew Botanical Gardens in London, the New York Botanical Gardens and the American Museum of Natural History.
In July of 1930, Koelz met Rup Chand, a member of the prominent Thakur family of the Lahul district of Punjab, India. Chand was well known in the areas of India known as Western Tibet, Lahul, Spiti, Zanksgar, and Ladakh, and provided Koelz with access to Buddhist monasteries and to their religious art. Koelz and Chand worked and traveled together until 1960, when Chand filed a lawsuit alleging that he had not received a fair share of the money earned from the pair's collecting efforts.
In 1932, Koelz had a falling out with the Roerich family and returned to Michigan for a brief period. He returned to Kulu in December with an appointment as a Freer Fellow to collect Tibetan artifacts for the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology. Koelz's collection of tankas (a portable religious painting on cloths), which numbered about one hundred in all, was shipped back to Ann Arbor, along with many other pieces, in January of 1934.
In the spring of 1934, Koelz returned to Michigan bringing Rup Chand with him. Koelz worked briefly for the Department of the Interior, acquiring land for what later was to become the Waterloo Recreation Area. By January 1936, Koelz had been appointed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a plant explorer and again sailed for India. During the summer of 1937, he returned to the United States, but was back in India by the summer of 1939. In December of 1939, Koelz left India for Persia where he would remain until January of 1946. After leaving Persia he returned to India, where he continued to act as a plant explorer for the Department of Agriculture. Koelz traveled in India, Nepal and Assam until October of 1953, when he returned to Michigan.
Perhaps the last traditional Victorian explorer, Koelz collected more than 50,000 bird specimens, and identified tens of thousands of plants that now bear his name as the collector at the University of Michigan Herbarium and other major international herbaria. The American Genetic Association awarded Koelz the Frank N. Meyer medal in 1956 for his part in saving the California melon crop during the 1950s.
Koelz brought numerous pieces of artwork, pottery, and other mementos from his expeditions to his Michigan home. His gardens included exotic and foreign flowers, trees and bushes. Koelz was considered the town eccentric. He was a recluse who kept peacocks for pets, chopped his own firewood, walked barefoot in snow and on ice, and dressed in pajama type clothing worn by men in the Himalayas.
Walter Koelz died on September 24, 1989 in Waterloo, Michigan, in the house in which he was born. Koelz never married and had no heirs. His estate was valued at well over one million dollars, due largely to the artifacts he had collected during his travels. The artifacts were sold at auction through Christie's in New York, with the proceeds of the sale benefiting The Nature Conservancy.
