Dr. John Stafford Brown and his wife, Evangeline (Moon) Brown, donated the 120 acre area encompassing Elephant Rocks State Park to the state of Missouri in 1966. Brown was born Sept. 26, 1894, in Thomas County, Kansas, and moved to Lamar, Mo., when he was young. He studied at the Missouri School of Mines, George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and Columbia University in New York. He worked as a geologist for the Missouri Geological Survey, the US Geological Survey, and private industry, and served as chief geologist for the St. Joseph Lead Co. for more than 30 years. He led the company's zinc mining exploration in New York and, in 1947, led the team that discovered the Viburnum Trend or Lead Belt in southeast Missouri, the site of one of the world's largest lead deposits. He wrote two books and many scientific papers and became best known for his work on ore deposits, coastal ground waters, and lead isotopes. In 1959, he received the Penrose Medal of the Society of Economic Geologists.