John Casper Branner

John Casper Branner (1850-1922) was an American geologist and academic who discovered bauxite in Arkansas in 1887 as State Geologist. As State Geologist, he exposed gold-mining swindles then operating in Arkansas, for which the citizens of Bear City, Arkansas burned him in effigy, and the stock promoters tried to have him fired. [Dan Plazak (2006) "A Hole in the Ground with a Liar at the Top", Salt Lake: University of Utah Press, p.122-123.] He was Chair of the Department of Botany and Geology at Indiana University. He served as President of the Indiana Academy of Science in 1889. He was President of the Seismological Society of America in 1911. He was the second President of Stanford University, serving from 1913 until his retirement in 1915. He was an expert in Brazilian geology, among many other things.

Branner received his bachelor's degree from Cornell University in 1882, and his Ph.D. from Indiana University in 1885.

A dormitory building at Stanford is named after him. Two of his Stanford students, United States President Herbert Hoover and his wife Lou Henry Hoover, dedicated their English translation of the medieval mining classic "De re metallica" to Branner.

References

Research resources

* [http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf5j49n80q John Casper Branner Presidential Papers, 1913-1917] (6.5 linear ft.) are housed in the [http://library.stanford.edu/depts/spc/spc.html Department of Special Collections and University Archives] at [http://library.stanford.edu/ Stanford University Libraries]