Morrie Thompson, a civil engineer who served with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Topographic Division for 56 years, died of congestive heart failure Jan. 6, 2009, at Greenspring Village in Springfield, Va.
Maps for America(1979), which was republished twice.
Morrie joined the Geological Survey in 1939 on a project to map the Tennessee Valley watershed using aerial photography. During World War II he remained in Tennessee and helped map strategic areas and invasion routes in Europe and Asia for the War Department. After the war he was assigned to the Office of Research and Technical Control at the Topographic Division’s headquarters in Washington.
Morrie received the Interior Department’s Distinguished Service Award in 1967 and retired in 1975. Throughout his career he was active in the professional societies pertaining to mapmaking. As a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, he served as chair of the surveying and mapping division and received the society’s surveying and mapping award for 1977.
Morrie’s wife, Sophia, died in 2004. He is survived by his son, Robert D. Thompson ’63; two grandchildren; and a sister.