David Dale Owen (1807–1860) was a prominent American geologist. He conducted the first geological surveys of Indiana, Kentucky, and Arkansas.
David Dale was the third son of Robert Owen, a Welsh reformer who moved to the United States and established a social experiment at New Harmony, Indiana, where David Dale also lived. It is likely that David Dale became interested in geology because of his father's partnership with geologist William Maclure. His first geological work was as an assistant mapping the geology of Tennessee, in 1836. He was appointed the first Geologist for the State of Indiana (1837–39), and worked as the State Geologist of Kentucky in 1854-1857; he was appointed State Geologist of Arkansas in 1857, continuing as the Kentucky geologist without pay. He returned to Indiana as State Geologist in 1859-1860.
David Dale Owen died November 13, 1860, at the age of 53.
While in Arkansas, David Dale Owen drew the first known picture of a natural rock formation in Natural Steps, Arkansas.
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“When I consider the clouds stretched in stupendous masses across the sky, frowning with darkness or glowing with downy light, or gilded with the rays of the setting sun, like the battlements of a city in the heavens, their grandeur appears thrown away on the meanness of my employment; the drapery is altogether too rich for such poor acting. I am hardly worthy to be a suburban dweller outside those walls.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Barbara Dale (b. 1940)
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—Wilfred Owen (1893–1918)