Charles F. Richter, the namesake of the Richter earthquake magnitude scale
or Richter Scale, was born near Overpeck, in Butler County, on April 26, 1900.

When he was 9 years old, his parents divorced and
his mother moved him to Los Angeles.
After high school, Richter received his undergraduate degree
from Stanford University in 1920,
and In 1928, he earned his Ph.D. in theoretical physics
from the California Institute of Technology.

While working at the Carnegie Institute of Washington,
Richter became fascinated with seismology,
the study of earthquakes.
With the opening of a new Seismological Laboratory in Pasadena,
under the direction of Beno Gutenberg,
Richter sought a new challenge- to establish a standardized system
for measuring an earthquake's strength.
Working together Gutenberg and Richter designed a seismograph
that tracked the displacement of earthquakes on a logarithmic scale
to measure their intensity: The Richter scale!

The measurements for the logarithmic scale or "magnitude"
came from Richter's childhood interest in astronomy -
astronomers measure the intensity of stars in magnitudes.

Richter and Gutenberg first presented the Richter Scale in 1935.
Seismicity of the Earth published by Gutenberg and Richter in 1941, revised in 1954,
was considered a standard reference in the field until the 1970's,
and is still mentioned today.

Richter spent the rest of his career at the California Institute of Technology,
eventually becoming professor of seismology,
and writing his own landmark textbook, Elementary Seismology.

During the 1960's, Richter became involved in earthquake engineering
through the development of building codes. Many municipal buildings
in California removed ornaments and cornices as a result of
Richter's earthquake awareness campaigns.
He also helped to establish the Southern California Seismic Array,
a network of instruments that tracks the origin and intensity of earthquakes.

After a 1971 earthquake, Richter's warnings were credited as
important in preventing many deaths.

Charles F. Richter, a native of Overpeck, Ohio,
devoted his life to seismology and saved many earthquake victims' lives.