Finley with desert sparrows Plenty of people, at least in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, have heard of the William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge a little south of Corvallis. But very few people know anything at all about William L. Finley, the remarkable early 20th-century conservationist and photographer for whom it was named. Eugene historian Joe R. Blakely is seeking to close that information gap with his latest book, William Lovell Finley: Champion of Oregon’s Wildlife Refuges, which Blakeley published himself this spring. In it he details not just Finley’s persistence in creating or saving wildlife refuges in Oregon and California but many lesser known and equally fascinating chapters in Finley’s unusual life.