Stock, Chester, 1892-1950

Biography

Chester Stock was born in San Francisco on January 28, 1892. At the University of California, where he received a B.S. degree in 1914 and a Ph.D. in 1917, Stock studied geology and vertebrate paleontology under John C. Merriam. In 1918, he began working on the Rancho La Brea (now Hancock Park) collection of ground sloths, saber-tooths, and other fossil bones, housed at the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art, in Exposition Park. Starting as Merriam's assistant in 1917, Stock advanced through the ranks to become an assistant professor in 1921. That year Merriam left Berkeley to become president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington and Stock took over Merriam's teaching duties in vertebrate paleontology.

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