Richard Urquhart Goode (December 8, 1858 – June 9, 1903) was an American geographer and topographer with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Northern Transcontinental Railroad Survey, and the Panama Canal Company. Goode was in charge of the Western Division of the USGS. which included all lands west of the Mississippi River, and worked on the boundary between the United States and Canada. Goode was one of the first employees of the newly created USGS in 1879. As a USGS topographer, he conducted geographic surveys of unmapped areas of the United States, resulting in what are now called USGS Topographic Maps. Goode is credited with the triangulation for more than 100 topographic maps; the data that he collected is still in use on current USGS maps. In 1894, Goode was placed in charge of the USGS Pacific Section and became head of the Western Division in June 1903. Goode temporarily left the USGS to work on two nationally important projects. From 1882 to 1884, he was a topographer for the Northern Transcontinental Railroad Survey in Montana and Washington. In 1888, Goode was an engineer and astronomer for the Panama Canal Company, conducting topographic surveys that addressed property rights on the Isthmus of Darian (now called the Isthmus of Panama). Goode was a member of the National Geographic Society and wrote several articles for National Geographic. He is the namesake of Mount Goode in Alaska, Goode Glacier in Washington, Mount Goode in Kings Canyon National Park of California, and Goode Mountain in North Cascades National Park.
Early life Goode was born in Bedford, Virginia, on December 8, 1858. He was the son of Sarah "Sallie" (née Urquhart) and John Goode Jr., a Virginia lawyer, politician and Solicitor General of the United States under President Grover Cleveland. His mother was the daughter of a wealthy planter, Dr. Richard Alexander Urquhart of Strawberry Plains plantation in Isle of Wight County, Virginia. Goode's siblings were Mary Urquhart Goode (1856–1926), John Breckinridge Goode (1864–1917), Annie Walton Goode (1869–1871), and James Urquhart Goode (1873–1944). According to the 1860 United States census, his father enslaved seven individuals. Goode attended the Hanover Academy in Norfolk, Virginia, and the Norfolk Military Academy also in Norfolk, with his cousin Frank Urquhart. Later, he attended the University of Virginia for several terms where he studied geography. He graduated from the university in 1878.
Career Goode served as an assistant in the Army's Engineer Corps (now U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) from 1877 to 1878. In 1879, Goode received an appointment from the U.S. Secretary of the Interior to be a topographer with the newly created United States Geological Survey (USGS). He was assigned to conduct geographic surveys in Arizona and Utah, resulting in what are now called the USGS Topographic Maps. In 1880, he was promoted to supervisor, charged with a survey of the Colorado Plateau. In 1881, he was assigned to oversee the primary triangulation of the area near Fort Wingate in New Mexico. On May 1, 1882, Goode temporarily resigned from the USGS to be a topographer for the Northern Transcontinental Railroad Survey (also called the Northern Pacific Topographical and Scientific Survey), working in Montana and Washington from 1882 to 1884. On July 23, 1884, Goode rejoined the USGS and supervised surveys in Kansas and Missouri. In 1886, he supervised surveys in Texas, working alongside another team supervised by his cousin Charles Fox Urquhart. In May and June 1888, Goode and Urquhart did the triangulation for Rhode Island, for a collaborative mapping project between the state and the USGS. Later in 1888, Goode took another leave of absence from the USGS—this time as an engineer and astronomer to conduct important topographic surveys addressing property rights on the Isthmus of Darian (now called the Isthmus of Panama) for the Panama Canal Company. In 1889, Goode rejoined the USGS and was promoted to the position of geographer in charge of the Southern Central Division of Topography. In September 1890, the USGS restructured its Topographic Branch into two divisions—Eastern and Western—and Goode was placed in charge of the Kansas-Texas section of Western Division. In August 1894, Goode was placed in charge of the more important Pacific Section, including California, Oregon, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Washington and Alaska. Goode worked on the boundary between the United States and Canada in 1898. In 1898, he spoke about "The Bitterroot Forest Preserve," now the Bitterroot National Forest, at a meeting of the National Geographic Society (NGS) at the Columbian University (later George Washington University). In 1900, Goode presented a lecture, "The Topographic Work of the United States Geological Survey," at the California Academy of Sciences. In June 1903, Goode was placed in charge of the Western Division of the USGS which included all lands west of the Mississippi River. His offices were in Washington, D.C., requiring Goode to return to the East Coast when it was not the summer mapping season. Goode oversaw the Western Division until he died in 1903.
Professional affiliations Goode was a member of the Washington Academy of Sciences, the NGS, and the Cosmos Club, where he was also an officer. From 1901 to 1903, he was the chairman of the Committee on Technical Meetings at the NGS.
Honors Several geographical features were named in his honor:
Mount Goode, a 10,610-foot (3,230 m) summit located in the Chugach Mountains of Alaska was named after him in 1924. Goode Mountain, the highest peak in North Cascades National Park and fourth highest in Chelan County, Washington—which Goode surveyed in 1883. Goode Glacier, rises over 1 mile (1.6 km) vertically above the North Fork Bridge Creek valley floor on the northeast face of Goode Mountain, Northern Cascades National Park. Mount Goode, a 13,085-foot (3,988 m) summit on the crest of the Sierra Nevada in Kings Canyon National Park of California, officially named in 1926.
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