Woman in pale sweater over a white blouse looks intently at the camera in a black and white image.

Eleanor Barbour was an educated woman, with passions in geology, paleontology, and music. She was raised in a scientifically active household, after all. She was the daughter of E.H. Barbour, Director of the Nebraska State Museum at the University of Nebraska. Through her father, she met and later married Harold Cook, son of James Cook. Harold and his father owned and operated the Agate Springs Ranch, home of the fossil beds the Park Service now protects. She had a distinguished record at the University and had studied abroad. The years that Harold and Eleanor were married and lived in “Agate East,” where the monument sits today, were the heyday of fossil collecting at the quarries. Eleanor threw herself into her complex role at Agate – part housewife and mother, part scientific peer -- with intelligence and humor. Later, she taught English, Geology, and Paleontology at Nebraska State Normal College in Chadron (now called Chadron State College). She worked in the field and took her students on excursions to the Agate Fossil Hills. At the request of College President Robert Elliott, she helped gather geologic and paleontological material to open their Museum of Geology. She became curator of that museum, which later became The Eleanor Barbour Cook Museum of Geology, which still inspires and educates college students and the public today. -BN Learn more about the amazing women of Agate at https://www.nps.gov/.../historyculture/women-of-agate.htm

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• Keywords: agfo; agate fossil beds; Eleanor Barbour; Paleontology; STEM; Women in STEM