Harry Thomas Cory was born on May 27, 1870, in Montmorenci, Indiana. Cory was a renowned engineer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Immediately following World War I, Cory was dispatched to North Carolina and other southern states by Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane to identify ideal locations for soldier resettlement communities. He died in Los Angeles, California, on March 22, 1955.