J. Hyatt Downing

John Hyatt Downing was born on March 18, 1888, in Granville, Iowa.[1][2][3] He grew up in Hawarden, Iowa and Blunt, South Dakota.[1][2] He worked on his father's ranch and as a railroad surveyor for the Northwestern Railroad, hotel's night clerk and shepherd in Wyoming, Nebraska and the Black Hills.[1][3] He then graduated from the University of South Dakota in 1913.[1][3][4]

Downing worked for the Internal Revenue Service in Aberdeen, South Dakota. He managed an alfalfa farm in Carlsbad, New Mexico, in 1921–1925. Downing worked as an insurance agent in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1925–1930. At the same time, he began writing short stories for Scribner's Magazine.[1][3]

His first novel, A Prayer for Tomorrow, was a semi-autobiographical account of the ranching culture in South Dakota.[5] He moved to Sioux City, Iowa, and wrote four more novels, including Sioux City, which became a bestseller and book of the month.[4] Downing sold the rights to a film production company and moved to California, but the movie was never made. Instead, he wrote publicity and radio scripts for Twentieth Century Fox instead.[1][3] His last short story was published in Reader's Digest in 1963.[1] His novel Four on the Trail was a paperback Western only released in England.[6]

Downing married Mary McGinnis. They had son, John, in 1921. Downing contracted tuberculosis in 1925.[1][3] Downing and his family first resided in Sioux City, Iowa, and later in Pismo Beach, California.[4]

Downing died in 1973 in Pismo Beach, California, at 85.[4]

• The J. Hyatt Downing Papers are housed at the University of Iowa Special Collections & University Archives.