William Edmund Scripps

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William Edmund Scripps (May 6, 1882–1952) newspaper publisher, aviator

Scripps was the son of James E. Scripps, the founder of Detroit’s Evening News. In 1916, he began purchasing large tracts of farmland in Lake Orion, Michigan with an ambition to raise livestock and show animals. The estate, called Wildwood Farms, grew in size to roughly 720 acres (2.9 km²).

In the mid-1920s Scripps hired his brother-in-law, architect Clarence E. Day to build a new home for his family on the northwest quadrant of the property. Scripps Mansion (or Moulton Manor) is a magnificent Tudor style mansion, was completed in 1927. Scripps Mansion served as a Catholic Guest House and Retreat Center since the 1950s and is not open to the public, except on rare occasions to show the magnificent interior and design.

Scripps was an avid aviator and promoted aviation through his father's newspaper, The Detroit News, which he ran during 1929–1952.

Scripps married Nina Amenda Downey and had four children. When his son James Edmund II died of appendicitis in 1925 at 22, Scripps and his wife donated a painting to the Detroit Art Museum in his memory.