Bevan, Arthur, 1888-1968

Arthur Bevan began his career as a geologist in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming while a student at Ohio Wesleyan University. At the University of Chicago he received his Ph.D. for his study of the geology of the Beartooth Mountains of Montana, work he revisited again during his career. He taught geology at several universities, including Chicago, Illinois, Montana, Ohio State, and Ohio Wesleyan. He served as state geologist of Virginia (1929-1947) and Illinois (1947-1955), and he drafted his autobiography before his death in 1968.

Arthur Charles Bevan was born on a farm near Delaware, OH on August 8, 1888 to David Williard and Mary Evans Bevan. Graduating from high school in 1906, he worked on the family farm after his father died and attended Ohio Wesleyan University on a part-time basis. He and his brother Chester took a bicycle and train trip west in 1909, where he first saw the Rocky Mountains. While a geology student at Ohio Wesleyan, he attended a University of Missouri geology summer camp in the Wind River Mountains of western Wyoming. He graduated in 1912 with a B.S. in geology, and stayed at the university for two years as an assistant instructor and acting head of the Geology Department. In 1914, he married Mary Edna Arthur and started graduate school at the University of Chicago where he taught and received his Ph.D. in geology in 1921. His thesis work was on glacial growth and recession studies in the Beartooth Mountains of Montana north of Yellowstone National Park.

After his graduation from the University of Chicago, he worked as a professor of geology at the University of Illinois. In 1929, he became the Virginia State Geologist for the Virginia Geological Survey, a position he held until he resigned in 1947 to accept the position of Illinois Principal Geologist. In 1955, he retired and moved back to Virginia. During his career, he also taught geology at The Ohio State University, the University of Montana, University of Chicago, and University of Illinois in addition to Ohio Wesleyan University. His retirement plans included writing his autobiography, technical and non-technical magazine articles, and continuing geological field work on the geomorphology, stratigraphy, and structure of the central Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, where he built his retirement cottage. Bevan died near Staunton, Virginia in 1968.