Madisonville Democrat--April 26, 1939

BIOGRAPHY OF DR. JOSEPH L. CLINE

Dr. Joseph L. Cline, B.S., A.M., Ph.D., was reared on a farm in Monroe County.  He was the son
of Jacob L. Cline and Mollie Cline.  He worked his way through Hiwassee College, residing in a
small dormitory there, did his own cooking and lived at a cost of about $4.50 a month until he
graduated.  Then he taught school at Mt. Vernon for one term, where he made a record as a
school teacher, after which he went to Texas and entered the U.S. Weather Bureau as assistant
observer.  He worked his way up in the Weather Bureau and is now a meteorologist in charge of
the U.S. Weather Bureau Office at Dallas, Texas.  He has been in the Weather Bureau 47 years.

Not long ago he was voted as a "Fellow" in the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, the highest honor given in America; and also a fellow in the Texas Academy of Science.

On December 8, 1938, the author and publisher of the International Blue Book, established in
London, 1909, as "Who's Who in the World," requested permission to biographically mention Dr.
Cline in the next edition of that publication, placing his name among the leading scientists of the
world, an honor earned by hard work, a credit to his parents and his old home, Monroe County. 
We reprint the following clipping:

"As Dr. Joseph L. Cline, United States Weather Bureau meteorologist, put on his hat and coat
and closed the door to the Weather Bureau office atop the Cotton Exchange Building Tuesday he
ended forty-seven years of weather service.  Wednesday he will be back on the job, for retired
weathermen soon die, he said.  "It was March 22, 1892, when Doc, as he is affectionately known
to thousands of North Texans who rely on his daily weather forecasts, decided there was no
future in continuing his career of teaching school for $25 a month at Mt. Vernon, Tenn., and
accepted a post with the Weather Bureau at Galveston.

"At Galveston just a few years later Doc distinguished himself in the Galveston flood in 1900,
winning warm praise from his superiors and a promotion to the post of section director of Puerto
Rico.  Dr. Cline occasionally reminisces over the fateful weekend and the horrors of riding out the
storm on driftwood tossed about over the gulf.

"Dr. Cline was communicating with Washington that Saturday night when the hurricanes and
rising water swept away the last of the island's telegraphic communications.  The city was already
half under the rising waters.

"From Galveston to Puerto Rico went Dr. Cline soon after the storm and there it fell his duty to
establish several meteorological stations over the island.  While setting up a station in the
mountains of the islands where no records of the weather had ever been kept, he was caught in
the rainy season and for many weeks was near death from tropical fever.  Doc later returned to
the U.S. to serve at Sandusky, Ohio; Evansville, Ind., and Corpus Christi before coming to Dallas
to establish the Weather Bureau here in 1913.  Dallas previously had received its weather
information from Galveston.  He rejected a section director's position in another state to come to
Dallas.

"Dr. Cline holds several university degrees, is regarded as one of the best weather authorities in
the country, is also an agricultural expert and a writer and lecturer on that subject.  In 1896 Dr.
Cline Wrote an article in which he predicted that the Rio Grande Valley would become a citrus
fruit and winter vegetable center.  The prediction was scoffed at then, but since has come true.

"Weather observers are graded by the Weather Bureau officials, and Dr. Cline's predictions are
correct more than 90 per cent of the time.

"He won't tell how much longer he will predict for North Texas.  In the Weather Bureau,
employees work until they reach the age of 70, and Doc says he will work until then or until he
dies.

"  Weather observers don't live long after they quit work,' and he said cautiously,  I've checked
over the records of some of the boys who retire, and most of them don't live but about three years
after they quit work.'"