December 12, 1917

Albert Homer Purdue, a renowned geologist who had been a professor of geology at Arkansas Industrial University (now the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville) and had been ex-officio state geologist, died in Tennessee of uremic poisoning, which resulted from complication from surgery undergone to correct an intestinal condition that had bothered him for years. As a student at Purdue University, Purdue had run a cleaning business with Herbert Clark Hoover, who later became president of the United States.