The bald eagle will soon become the national bird thanks to one man --

Government websites called bald eagles the national bird. Textbooks and newspaper articles agreed. But when Cook searched high and low for any official documentation cementing the bird’s status, he found nothing. Flabbergasted, in 2011 he wrote to his senator — the late Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California — asking if her staff could investigate this mystery at the National Archives.

“It turns out that the documentation wasn’t missing — it didn’t exist. We’ve never had a national bird,” Cook told The Washington Post. “The senator sent me back a letter saying it’s assumed to be our national bird, but it has never been declared our national bird.”

Cook sat on that knowledge for years. But as he blew out the candles on his 78th birthday cake last year, he knew he couldn’t wait any longer: “I thought, ‘I’m going to have change this now, or it’s never going to be done,’” he said.

In the months that followed, Cook rallied wildlife organizations, zoos and tribal groups for support. He financed a lobbyist to present the initiative to the Minnesota congressional delegation. And he wrote a bill that would finally make the bald eagle America’s bird — legislation that unanimously sailed through the Senate and the House this year and is now awaiting President Joe Biden’s signature.

The story of how Cook unearthed and fought to correct the 248-year-old oversight begins in a dark movie theater in the mid-1960s with a single line: “You can’t have too many eagles.”

Something inside Cook stirred when he heard actor Jason Robards say that phrase in the comedy film “A Thousand Clowns,” and he left the theater determined to collect eagle memorabilia. He got the first item in his collection about four months later, when he was drafted into the U.S. Army and issued a dress uniform adorned with golden buttons bearing the Great Seal of the United States.

Now Cook’s — still growing — trove of more than 40,000 eagle-themed items serves as a vicarious journey through U.S. history. His collection includes a Civil War drum, an authenticated document signed by Abraham Lincoln, a piece of the stage from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidential inauguration, a rare Andy Warhol painting, bedazzled stiletto heels and even stylized toilet seats.

“I think I might have gotten a little bit carried away,” Cook said of an eagle collection he believes to be the largest in the world. “But I do have my limits.”

For decades, Cook kept his colossal collection at home — and in some storage units — in California. But after he released a rehabilitated eagle at the 2003 American Bald Eagle Festival in Haines, Alaska, Cook left the event determined to share his treasure trove with the world — and perhaps to inspire others to love the majestic bird along the way.

Cook’s goal was to donate his collection to an eagle museum. But, finding that none existed, he zeroed in on Wabasha, Minnesota, a roughly 2,500-person town where hundreds of bald eagles congregate each winter. Known as the country’s “Eagle Capital,” it’s home to the National Eagle Center — an educational nonprofit by the banks of the Mississippi River — and, now, his collection. Cook and his wife, Donna, followed the eagles north to Wabasha, where they now live.

Ed Hahn, the eagle center’s director of advancement and marketing communications, said Cook’s collection will help his organization better teach about the bird’s place in American culture.

“It’s truly a precious gift because it allows people to learn about and understand the American experience in a wholly unique way,” Hahn said.

The bald eagle has stood as a symbol since before the birth of the nation, representing strength, courage and freedom in many Native American cultures. Its story of resilience — making a remarkable comeback after its population was pushed to the brink of extinction — in many ways mirrors that of the country, said Cheryl Merz of Audubon EagleWatch, which monitors and collects data on Florida’s nesting eagles.

These soaring balls of fluff and hollow bones that are found in every state except Hawaii “are so incredibly resilient,” Merz said. “Down here in Florida, eagles have gone though a lot of changes because of the all the development we’ve gone through. And even if they can’t find a tree, they’ll move to nesting in power line towers, cell towers, stadium lights. It’s crazy how they always find a way.”

The bald eagle’s conservation success story inspired Jack E. Davis to write a book about the species, “The Bald Eagle: The Improbable Journey of America’s Bird.” While doing research for the book, Davis received an invitation from Cook to tour his collection in Wabasha.

“The thing is, [Cook] isn’t like, a reality TV hoarder. He took something that has personal value to him and turned it into something that has public value,” Davis said. “And this infatuation with eagles isn’t his alone — he wouldn’t be able to have this collection without America’s infatuation with putting the bald eagle on everything.”

Davis and Cook struck up an immediate friendship and two years later found themselves watching eagles catch fish in Wabasha. While sipping Eagle Rare bourbon from eagle-themed tumblers, the two men “who probably knew the history of the bald eagle’s relationship with the United States better than anyone,” Davis said, went back and forth confirming to each other that the bald eagle wasn’t the national bird.

“That’s when Preston said, ‘We need to do something about that,’” Davis said. “And just like that, the National Bird Initiative began.”

Davis became co-chair of the project to make the bald eagle the national bird, while the National Eagle Center served as the project’s institutional home. Cook leaned on the legislation-writing chops he had gained as a government employee decades earlier to craft “a very basic bill that did exactly one thing,” he said.

A year later, Davis and Cook were calling each other to celebrate the bill’s passage.

“What an incredible legacy for Preston to be the one to fix a mistake that’s as old as the country,” Davis said.

But Davis admits there’s one thing he misses about the bald eagle lacking official status: “The expression on people’s faces when I told them it wasn’t the national bird. It was priceless.”