# John Cook

## Biography

John R. Cook was born in Mount Gilead, Ohio, in 1844. His early life involved moves to Kansas and Indiana before he enlisted in the Union Army during the Civil War, serving with the Twelfth Kansas Infantry. After the war, he ventured west, prospecting in New Mexico before becoming a renowned buffalo hunter in the Texas Panhandle during the 1870s. His experiences on the frontier and as a participant in the organization of Wheeler County provided the foundation for his most notable literary work, *The Border and the Buffalo*, published in 1907. Cook later became a temperance orator and married Alice Victoria Maddux. Their life together took them to the Dakota Territory and Oregon before he returned to Kansas. He passed away in 1917 and was laid to rest at the Kansas Soldier's Home.

## Books

- [The Border and the Buffalo: An Untold Story of the Southwest Plains](https://samolit.com/books/96595)