Cobb, John N. (John Nathan), 1868-1930

John N. Cobb was a fisheries biologist, author and editor, federal official, and university professor and administrator who was born 1868 in Oxford, New Jersey, and died in 1930 in La Jolla, California. John Cobb is best known as a leading authority on fisheries and for initiating and directing the University of Washington fisheries program. He became a leader in his field and received commissions to investigate fisheries along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and the Great Lakes. Most of his work was in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, but his investigations included everything from lobster fisheries in Maine to sponge fisheries in Florida. Aside from his development of the UW fisheries program, Cobb's most noteworthy contributions were inventions to allow salmon to overcome modern barriers. These included fishways, such as escalators, to allow salmon to pass over dams, and electric gates to keep young salmon out of irrigation ditches. He worked for the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, the Salmon Fisheries of Alaska, the journal Pacific Fisherman, and the Alaska Packers Association. He was asked to head the UW fisheries program when it opened in 1919 and served as its director (and later dean) until poor health forced him to resign ten years later. He also served as president of the Pacific Fisheries Society in the 1920s.

Best known as a leading authority on fisheries and for initiating and directing the University of Washington fisheries program, John Cobb was a fisheries biologist, author and editor, federal official, and college professor. Cobb became a leader in his field and received commissions to investigate fisheries along the Atlantic coast, Great Lakes, and the Pacific coast. Most of Cobb’s work was in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, but his investigations included everything from lobster fisheries in Maine to sponge fisheries in Florida. Aside from his development of the University of Washington fisheries program, some of Cobb’s most noteworthy contributions were inventions to allow salmon to overcome modern barriers. These included fishways, such as escalators, to allow salmon to pass over dams, and electric gates to keep young salmon out of irrigation ditches.

Cobb was born in 1868 in Oxford, New Jersey, where he attended public schools. After finishing high school, Cobb received no further formal education. In the late 1880s, he began to work as a newspaper reporter and editor.

Cobb’s fisheries career began when he took a job with the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, which lasted from 1895 until 1904. At the bureau he authored various publications, but unlike his later works, Cobb’s research and writing in the 1890s reflected a lack of scientific training. During this time, Cobb married Harriet C. Bidwell of Jersey City in 1898.

As he gained more experience in the field, his work improved and his reputation began to spread; Cobb furthered his career in 1904 when he accepted a position as the assistant agent of the Salmon Fisheries of Alaska. From 1913 to 1917, he served as editor of the Pacific Fisherman, a journal published in Seattle. In 1917 Cobb became the assistant general superintendent of the Alaska Packers Association, a job he held until 1919.

In the 1910s Cobb began to encourage the University of Washington to establish the first fisheries college in the United States. The university had begun consulting Cobb about a fisheries program as early as 1914, but once World War I began, the university put the program on hold until 1919. When the university opened the school in 1919, Cobb was asked to be its director. Given that Cobb had not even earned a bachelor’s degree, his appointment was somewhat unusual and reflected his remarkable reputation and achievements. Without any familiarity with academic customs, Cobb was assigned to organize a new college, recruit faculty, establish a curriculum, and teach.

During Cobb’s tenure as director (and later dean) of the College of Fisheries, he continued to publish and enhance his reputation in the field. In 1921 and 1923, he served as president of the Pacific Fisheries Society. During his career at the University of Washington, Cobb also gained a reputation as an irascible character who dealt ruthlessly with students and faculty alike.

By 1929 Cobb had developed a debilitating heart condition that forced him to put his teaching and research aside. In January 1930, Cobb died of a heart attack in La Jolla, California, at the age of 61.