University of Wyoming
James Henry Cook (1857-1942) a naturalist, cowboy, and rancher was a guide and scout for the Texas rangers in the early 1870s, participated in several cattle drives during the 1870s, and was a scout for the U.S. cavalry in the Geronimo Indian Campaign of 1885-1886. He purchased the O-4 Ranch (renamed the Agate Springs Ranch) near the Wyoming border in Sioux County, Nebraska, in 1887, where he had discovered the Agate Springs Fossil Beds in the early 1880s. Cook married Kate Graham in 1886, and their son, Harold J. Cook, was born in 1887. James H. Cook wrote two books, "Fifty Years on the Old Frontier" (1923) and "Longhorn Cowboy," published posthumously in 1942. He was elected to the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in 1960.
Harold James Cook (1887-1962), a paleontologist, geologist, and rancher, attended the University of Nebraska (1906-1908) and Columbia University (1909-1910). Harold Cook was curator of paleontology at the Colorado Museum of Natural History from 1925 to 1930, first custodian of the Scottsbluff National Monument from 1934 to 1935 and taught at Chadron State Normal College, Nebraska, from 1925 to 1926 and Western State College, Colorado, in 1929. He was a consulting geologist involved in oil exploration and development, chiefly in Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming. Throughout his life, Harold Cook participated in paleontological research at the Agate Springs Fossil Beds; the quarry was designated a national monument in the mid-1960s.
Bulk of the collection pertains to the career of Harold J. Cook and includes extensive correspondence related to paleontology, petroleum development, the Agate Springs Ranch and the Agate Springs Fossil Beds; subject files; legal documents; maps, including some hand colored; financial and income tax records; notebooks; diaries; drawings; well logs; manuscripts; printed materials; photographs; and miscellaneous other materials.
James H. Cook material contains correspondence, including with E.A. Brininstool and members of the Cook family; notebooks; newspaper clippings; photographs and negatives; and miscellaneous other materials. They are chiefly photocopies.
Collection also includes a typescript inventory of Cook materials held at Agate Springs Fossil Beds National Monument.
The collection is open to the public, but the Harold J. Cook correspondence with attorney J.E. Porter is closed until 2036.
The researcher assumes full responsibility for observing all copyright, property, and libel laws as they apply.
The American Heritage Center aspires to approach all areas of our work in ways that are respectful to those who create, use, and are represented in our collections. For a variety of reasons, however, users may encounter offensive or harmful language or images in some of our finding aids, catalogs, and collection materials.
Note that the AHC does not censor or alter contents of the collections as they provide context and evidence of a time, people, place, or event.
Therefore, we encourage users to bring questions and concerns about descriptions in our finding aids to our attention via
See also the Cook papers at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, Harrison, NE 69346.
This material was received from Mrs. Grayson Mead from 1975-1985, Dorothy Cook Meade in 1986, Jim Downey in 1990, and James Wigton in 2023.
Item Description, Box Number, Folder Number, Collection Name, Collection Number, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
The American Heritage Center is in the process of converting its older container lists to a more accessible format. These links are to older versions of container lists for boxes 1-111.