Gertrude Selma Sober Field (December 26, 1869 — November 2, 1949) was an American geologist and mining company executive, credited with discovering the zinc in the

Arbuckle Mountains The Arbuckle Mountains are an ancient mountain range in south-central Oklahoma in the United States. They lie in Murray, Carter, Pontotoc, and Johnston counties.

in Oklahoma. She was called "Queen of the Arbuckles", and inducted posthumously into the

National Mining Hall of Fame The National Mining Hall of Fame is a museum located in Leadville, Colorado, United States, dedicated to commemorating the work of miners and people who work with natural resources. The museum also participates in efforts to inform the public ab ...

in 1988.

Early life and education

Gertrude Selma Sober was born near Farragut, Iowa, the daughter of Morris Smith Sober and Isabel Rebecca Beaston Sober. At age 19, she moved with her family to Oklahoma City, as part of the Land Rush of 1889.

Career

Sober worked as a stenographer and teacher in Oklahoma, but she experimented with raising crops, and enjoyed searching for minerals in her free time. She began raising money for a mining company in 1906, and was called by one Oklahoma newspaper a "noted mineralogist and geologist" as early as 1907. She was prospecting with a local doctor, R. C. Hope, in 1909 when she discovered zinc, and what became the Southwest Davis Zinc Field, a major deposit in Oklahoma. She and Hope formed the short-lived Indian Mining and Development Company, with Sober as president. In the 1910s she invested in the Bellah zinc mine in Arkansas,Robert O. Fay
''The Southwest Davis Zinc Field''
(Oklahoma Geological Survey 1981): 4-6. and was superintendent of the mine. Late in life, Sober ran a rooming house for students in Norman, Oklahoma, and took up studies at the University of Oklahoma. She finished university at age 64 with a bachelor's degree in geology in 1933 (the first woman to earn a geology degree at that institution). She published at least one research paper, on rock formations in Noble County, Oklahoma. In 1988, she was inducted into the National Mining Hall of Fame in Colorado, with her nomination promoted by the Association for Women Geoscientists.Getrude Selma Sober
National Mining Hall of Fame, 1988 inductee.

Personal life

Gertrude Sober married Chester Field, a miner, in early 1918. He died in the

1918 flu pandemic The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case was ...

the following autumn. Gertrude Sober Field died in 1949, age 79, in Oklahoma City.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sober, Gertrude Selma 1869 births 1949 deaths People from Fremont County, Iowa American women geologists American geologists