Luella Agnes Owen

Luella Agnes Owen (8 September 1852 – 31 May 1932) was a speleologist and geologist, noted for her early studies on caves in Missouri.

Early life and education Luella Agnes Owen was born in St. Joseph, Missouri on 8 September 1852.

Luella attended a local private school before the Civil War. The Owen family were known Southern sympathizers. She had several mentors who were geologists, including James Todd, George Frederick Wright, and Newton Horace Winchell, that encouraged her to publish her research in foreign and American journals. Owen was elected a life fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and in 1900, she took a year-long trip around the world as a working member of the American Geographic Society, along with the famous explorer Admiral Robert E. Peary.