Location
Elmer Julius Lund
Years: 1884–1969 | Role: Physiologist | County: Nueces
Topics
Description
Lund was born in Minnesota, attended Hamline University, earned his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins, and joined the University of Texas faculty in 1926, where he developed the school’s physiology and biophysics programs.
He is particularly remembered for founding the UT Marine Science Institute. Establishment of Texas coastal research stations had been unsuccessfully attempted in 1892 and 1915. However, fascination with a 1935 red tide fish kill brought Lund to Port Aransas, and by 1941 Lund had persuaded the University to create a research facility there on a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dock.
He served as Institute director until 1949, studying marine fish and oysters, founding the journal Contributions in Marine Science, and contributing 12 acres of land to the station, now honored as the University’s “Window on the Sea”.
Location Notes
Lund could be recognized with a marker at 750 Channel View Drive, in Port Aransas. This would be near the site of Dormitory B, the "Old Lab", once part of the Marine Science Institute, where he first began his coastal studies in 1935. Hurricane Harvey destroyed the building in 2017.