John Casper Branner
| John C. Branner | |
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John C. Branner
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| Second President of Stanford University | |
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In office 1913 – January 1, 1916 |
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| Preceded by | David Starr Jordan |
| Succeeded by | Ray Lyman Wilbur |
| Personal details | |
| Born | July 4, 1850 New Market, Tennessee |
| Died | March 1, 1922 (aged 71) |
| Alma mater | Cornell University |
| Profession | Geologist |
John Casper Branner (July 4, 1850 – March 1, 1922) was an American geologist and academic who discovered bauxite in Arkansas in 1887 as State Geologist for the Geological Survey of Arkansas. He was Chair of the Departments of Botany and Geology at Indiana University and later at Stanford University. He was a member of the founding faculty at Stanford and served as the university's second president. He served as President of the Geological Society of America in 1904. He was President of the Seismological Society of America in 1911. He was an expert in Brazilian geology, among many other things.
Branner was born in the town of New Market, Tennessee, where his father was a merchant. In 1852, the family went to live on a farm given his father by his grandfather a mile east of Dandridge on the French Broad River. He grew up there and on an adjacent property to which the family moved in 1859. During the Civil War he was very anxious to join the Confederate army, and on two occasions left school for the purpose of enlisting. His age, however, prevented his being accepted; he was only thirteen.
In 1865, he went to school for a year at New Market and in 1867, he spent a year at Maryville College. He left that institution in 1868, and in 1869, went to Ithaca, New York, to attend Cornell University. He spent a year attending Ithaca Academy and entered Cornell in 1870, in the so-called classical course.
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