John G. Lind was born in 1867, in Stockholm, Sweden. Immigrating to the United States in 1872, the Lind family settled in Heber City, Utah. By the age of 14, Lind was working in mines and attending school in Park City. Between 1882 and 1889, Lind attended St. Marks High School in Salt Lake City, followed by Brigham Young Academy. He graduated from the University of Utah in 1893 with a Bachelors of Science in Chemistry, Geology, and Physics. John Lind began teaching Latin, as well as natural and physical sciences, at the newly formed Weber Stake Academy in 1896. He continued his education for many years, earning a Masters of the Arts from Illinois Wesleyan University in 1904.

In 1907, Lind took a sabbatical from the renamed Weber Academy to embark on a mission to Germany for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His mission abruptly ended due to illness, presumably rheumatic fever, the complications of which he suffered for the remainder of his life. After a brief recovery, Lind enrolled in the University of Jena and Heidelberg University in Germany, earning a Ph. D from the latter in “Naturalis Creamus,” literally Natural Creations, in 1910. His graduate studies focused on Geology and Minerology, and he wrote his dissertation on the geology and hydrology of the mountains outside Heidelberg.

Lind returned to Weber in 1910 and served for nearly 30 more years, retiring from the college in 1938. He made generous contributions to the college, donating over 100 valuable books, 50 volumes of scientific journals, and an extensive collection of metals and minerals. Notably, Lind was the first member of faculty at Weber to have earned a doctorate degree.

In addition to his work at the college, Dr. Lind dedicated large amounts of time to private investments and geological consulting and research, serving as an assayer, a mining and drilling consultant, and interestingly, an alcohol content tester for the Weber County Sheriff’s Office during the Prohibition era.

By the time of his 1938 retirement, Dr. Lind’s health was in severe decline, and he spent large amounts of time trying to regain his health in California. In June of 1944, Dr. Lind died at the age of 77 due to causes related to old age.