Robert Thomas Hill began life on August 11, 1858, in the aristocratic comforts of his parents' Nashville, Tennessee, home. His family, however, suffered tragic losses during the Civil War and by 1864 young Robert was an orphan living in his grandmother's Nashville home. He left Nashville in 1874 for Comanche County, Texas, to join his brother, Joe, as an employee of a local newspaper known as the Comanche Chief. Hill's interest in the area's geology inspired him in 1882 to enter Cornell University where he graduated with honors in geology in 1887. In 1888 he became assistant professor of geology at the University of Texas. He participated in the State Geological Survey and identified and named the Balcones Escarpment. In 1891 Hill became president of the prestigious Cosmos Club, a society of the nation's most distinguished scientists. In the 1890s and early 1900s Hill studied the aquifers of Texas, New Mexico, and the Indian territory, and explored the geology of the trans-Pecos, Southwest U.S., West Indies, Mexico, and Central America. Hill's publications represent one of the most distinguished geological studies produced by one individual. He died on July 28, 1941. He was cremated and his ashes scattered over Round Mountain, a butte near Comanche. (1995)
This page last updated: 7/15/2008 |
Robert Thomas Hill Historical Marker Location Map, Comanche, Texas
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Related Themes: Texas C.S.A., Texas Confederate States of America, Confederacy
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