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Harold J. Cook experienced firsthand the discovery and development of a world famous fossil site on his family's ranch. Having witnessed recovery of rare and scientifically significant specimens, he strove to have the site preserved for the public trust. Three years after his death, Agate Fossil Beds National Monument was established. Harold James Cook was born July 3, 1887 in Cheyenne, Wyoming, the only child of Captain James H. and Kate Graham Cook. Six weeks after Harold's birth the family moved to the 04 Ranch in Sioux County in northwest Nebraska where Captain Cook built a successful cattle operation. The Cooks changed the name of the ranch to Agate Springs Ranch because of plentiful moss agate and numerous springs on the land along the Niobrara River. But the property contained another, more valuable resource: Miocene mammal fossils. Captain Cook had discovered and reported finding animal bones on a hillside on the ranch years before, but it was 1904 before a professional paleontologist, O. A. Peterson from Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum, visited the ranch. Young Harold Cook showed him the fossil site; Peterson recognized its significance immediately. The next year brought Dr. E. H. Barbour of the University of Nebraska to open a fossil quarry not far from the Carnegie diggings. The fame of the Agate Springs fossil site spread rapidly and within a few years teams from many other institutions also were operating there. Among them were the Smithsonian, Amherst, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, the American Museum of Natural History, Chicago Museum of Natural History, and the Colorado Museum of Natural History, the original name of Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Working with famous paleontologists inspired Harold Cook to pursue this field, and he studied under Professor Barbour at Nebraska. In 1909 Cook began graduate studies at Columbia University, but he had to return to help at the ranch in 1910 after his mother was institutionalized with a mental breakdown. Late that year he married Prof. Barbour's daughter, Eleanor. They lived at the ranch and raised four daughters: Margaret, Dorothy, Winifred, and Eleanor. Cook managed time to interact with the paleontologists working the ongoing excavations at the ranch. In 1920 Cook began working on projects for the Museum, and in 1925 he was named Honorary Curator. He joined the staff as Curator of Paleontology in late 1928 but resigned in 1930 to return to the ranch. Cook was a prolific writer and had articles published in nearly all of the professional journals of the time, including several in the Proceedings of the Colorado Museum. Cook and his wife divorced in 1927, and she and the four daughters later fought his plan to make the ranch a public park. In 1930 Cook married Margaret Crozier, who helped him work towards preserving the fossil quarries as part of the public trust. He died in 1962, but Margaret lived until 1968 and saw the National Monument authorized in 1965. A few months before her death, Margaret donated the extensive Cook collection of Indian artifacts and Sioux memorabilia, Western apparel and art, a Western gun collection, and Cook's paleontological library to the National Park Service. Today the Monument consists of several thousand acres of federal land surrounding a private inholding for the Agate Springs Ranch headquarters, a compromise reached in 1986.

Geologist, paleontologist.

Cook amassed an extensive collection of fossil vertebrates from Nebraska now owned by the American Museum of Natural History. The collection is known as the Harold James Cook Memorial Collection of Fossil Mammals.

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.

Harold J. Cook experienced firsthand the discovery and development of a world famous fossil site on his family's ranch. Having witnessed recovery of rare and scientifically significant specimens, he strove to have the site preserved for the public trust. Three years after his death, Agate Fossil Beds National Monument was established.

Harold James Cook was born July 3, 1887 in Cheyenne, Wyoming, the only child of Captain James H. and Kate Graham Cook. Six weeks after Harold's birth the family moved to the 04 Ranch in Sioux County in northwest Nebraska where Captain Cook built a successful cattle operation. The Cooks changed the name of the ranch to Agate Springs Ranch because of plentiful moss agate and numerous springs on the land along the Niobrara River. But the property contained another, more valuable resource: Miocene mammal fossils.

Captain Cook had discovered and reported finding animal bones on a hillside on the ranch years before, but it was 1904 before a professional paleontologist, O. A. Peterson from Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum, visited the ranch. Young Harold Cook showed him the fossil site; Peterson recognized its significance immediately. The next year brought Dr. E. H. Barbour of the University of Nebraska to open a fossil quarry not far from the Carnegie diggings. The fame of the Agate Springs fossil site spread rapidly and within a few years teams from many other institutions also were operating there. Among them were the Smithsonian, Amherst, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, the American Museum of Natural History, Chicago Museum of Natural History, and the Colorado Museum of Natural History, the original name of Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

Working with famous paleontologists inspired Harold Cook to pursue this field, and he studied under Professor Barbour at Nebraska. In 1909 Cook began graduate studies at Columbia University, but he had to return to help at the ranch in 1910 after his mother was institutionalized with a mental breakdown. Late that year he married Prof. Barbour's daughter, Eleanor. They lived at the ranch and raised four daughters: Margaret, Dorothy, Winifred, and Eleanor. Cook managed time to interact with the paleontologists working the ongoing excavations at the ranch. In 1920 Cook began working on projects for the Colorado Museum, and in 1925 he was named Honorary Curator. He joined the staff as Curator of Paleontology in late 1928 but resigned in 1930 to return to the ranch. Cook was a prolific writer and had articles published in nearly all of the professional journals of the time, including several in the Proceedings of the Colorado Museum.

Cook and his wife divorced in 1927, and she and his four daughters later fought his plan to make the ranch a public park. In 1930 Cook married Margaret Crozier, who helped him work towards preserving the fossil quarries as part of the public trust. He died in 1962, but Margaret lived until 1968 and saw the National Monument authorized in 1965. A few months before her death, Margaret donated the extensive Cook collection of Indian artifacts and Sioux memorabilia, Western apparel and art, a Western gun collection, and Cook's paleontological library to the National Park Service. Today the Monument consists of several thousand acres of federal land surrounding a private inholding for the Agate Springs Ranch headquarters, a compromise reached in 1986.