Pratt, Joseph Hyde, 1870-1942

Mining engineer; mineralogist; geologist; and educator.

Joseph Hyde Pratt (1870-1942), a native of Hartford, Conn., received his bachelor's degree from the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University in 1893. In 1892 and in subsequent summers he was employed by the North Carolina Geological Survey, with S. L. Penfield and under Joseph Austin Holmes, North Carolina state geologist. In the winters he did graduate work in chemistry and mineralogy and taught at Yale and Harvard universities. He received his Ph.D. in 1896.

In 1897 Pratt was briefly general manager of the Toxaway Company in Jackson County, N.C., and at the same time became mineralogist to the North Carolina Geological Survey and a consulting mining engineer. He was lecturer in mineralogy at the University of North Carolina, 1898-1901, and professor of economic geology at the university, 1904-1925.

Pratt served as the North Carolina state mineralogist, 1897-1906; was acting state geologist in the absence of Joseph Austin Holmes, 1905; and was state geologist, 1906-1923. He was also secretary of the North Carolina Good Roads Association, 1905-1920; and was sometime president of the North Carolina Drainage Association, North Carolina Forestry Association, Southern Appalachian Power Conference, and North Carolina Conference for Social Service; secretary of North Carolina Fisheries Association; and participated actively in other such organizations at the state, regional, and national level. He also wrote and published in his field and was retained by numerous mining companies as consulting engineer. From 1918 to 1919 he served with the 105th Engineers, 30th Division, American Expeditionary Force.

Pratt was also one of the organizers of the Made-in-Carolina Association, 1922; was president of Western North Carolina, Inc., 1925-1927; member of Appalachian Forest Research Council and Southern Forestry Congress; and engineer-consultant for the United States Geological Survey in the 1930s, serving sometime in Washington, D.C., and sometime as regional consultant in Chapel Hill, N.C.