Nebraska Authors

Grew up on the 04 Ranch (which became part of the Agate Springs Ranch) in western Nebraska and became interested in the fossils, when, as a child, he helped paleontologists dig there. Before he had finished his undergraduate degree at the University of Nebraska, the great Henry F. Osborn, of the American Museum of Natural History, who had met him while digging fossils at the ranch, convinced Cook to come to New York, take classes at Columbia University and work at the Museum. Both men agreed the goal was not a degree, but the opportunity to do important work. Harold always intended to work the ranch. While in New York, he took classes from Osborn and other leading scientists, and associated with the likes of Roy Chapman Andrews, W.D. Mathew, and R.S. Lull of Yale University. He became a distinguished paleontologist.

Cook's father was a good friend to Red Cloud, and often invited the Lakota to come down and hunt on his ranch, after they were confined to the Pine Ridge. Cook's memoir includes accounts of Red Cloud and his band, as well as various incidents related to attempts to homestead in the Sandhills region after the Kinkaid Act was passed in 1904. The Federal Government acquired land from the Cooks and established Agate Fossil Beds National Monument on the site of the old 04 ranch in 1997.

Cook married the daughter of Erwin Barbour in 1910. The two had four children but parted, and Cook married Margaret Crozier, the companion of his later years. Harold Cook was the son of Captain James Cook, who founded the Agate Springs Ranch. His memoir Tales of the 04 Ranch was written as a sequel to his father's memoir, Fifty Years on the Old Frontier, 1923. The Cooks were direct descendants of British sea captain and explorer James Cook.

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