Eleanor Barbour Cook Museum of Geology

The Eleanor Barbour Cook Museum of Geology, located on the campus of Chadron State College, houses an impressive collection of rocks, minerals, and fossils from Nebraska and around the world. Visitors can see rare agates, jade and petrified wood.

Chadron State College’s first museum, the Eleanor Barbour Cook Museum of Geology dates back to 1938 when college president Robert Elliott began discussions with vertebrate paleontologist E.H. Barbour of Lincoln and Barbour’s daughter and CSC’s first geology professor, Eleanor Barbour Cook. With help from her father and others, Eleanor Cook began endowing the museum collections with donated specimens from around the world. While many of the original specimans were lost when the museum was left without much supervision in the 1940s, the collection has since grown.

*NOTE: The Barbour Cook Museum of Geology is closed until 2022 for renovations. Some of the exhibits have been relocated to other buildings on the Chadron State College Campus. 

Contact: Mike Leite, Museum Coordinator; Phone: 432-6377; Email: mleite@csc.edu