CARBONDALE, Kan. (KPR) - One hundred and fifty-three years ago this week, in the tiny town of Carbondale, Kansas, a baby was born who would one day change the world of paleontology. Today, Commentator Katie Keckeisen tells us about the man who first discovered the remains of everyone's favorite dinosaur.
(Transcript)
Barnum Brown: The Father of Dinosaurs
By Katie Keckeisen
If you ask any kid what their favorite dinosaur is, 9 times out of 10 they will say T. rex. What few realize is that Kansas can claim the man responsible for discovering history's greatest predator as one of its own. Barnum Brown not only discovered the first Tyrannosaurus rex fossil; he also is widely believed to be the best dinosaur collector who ever lived.
Brown was born in Carbondale, Kansas, on February 12, 1873. He later stated that he had been given the name "Barnum" by his older brother, who had seen the name on the posters for P.T. Barnum's Great Traveling World's Fair. His parents had a farm outside of Carbondale and young Barnum would regularly follow behind his father's plows and scrapers, collecting the fossilized corals and marine life that were unearthed.
In 1893, Barnum Brown began studying at the University of Kansas. In 1895, he accompanied geology professor, Samuel Williston, on a university-led expedition to Wyoming. While there, Brown helped to uncover an almost complete skull of a Triceratops. The specimen was taken back to KU, where it became one of the first Triceratops specimens on public display.
By now, Brown was hooked on fossil hunting. He took a position at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City in 1897 in the vertebrate paleontology department.
He became known among his fellow fossil hunters for his unique sense of style out in the field. He often undertook his excavations in a suit and tie, a bowler hat and a long fur coat.
He spent his springs and summers doing fieldwork in Wyoming and Montana, where he unearthed several unique specimens. But his most famous find came in 1902.
While digging in the Hell Creek formation in Montana, Brown came across the remains of a dinosaur he'd never encountered before. He later wrote in his diary "I have never seen anything like it from the Cretaceous." It took three months of back-breaking work to unearth the skeleton. Although the specimen lacked a skull, Brown knew this new dinosaur would have been something truly colossal.
Henry Fairfield Osborn, the curator of the paleontology department at the museum, gave the creature the name Tyrannosaurus rex, meaning "tyrant lizard king." Barnum Brown referred to it as his "favorite child."
In 1908, Brown was able to find another skeleton of T. rex, this one with the skull. The fossil quickly became the highlight of the museum's exhibits, and the world fell in love with the terrifying creature that ruled 65 million years ago. The American Museum of Natural History's T. Rex is still considered to be one of its crown jewels.
Barnum Brown didn't rest on his laurels. Over the next fifty years, he became known as the "Father of Dinosaurs" for his unique ability to find amazing specimens. Lowell Dingus, a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History, considers Barnum Brown to be "the best dinosaur collector who ever lived."
Brown retired from the museum in 1942 but stayed in the public eye with his own radio program on CBS, as well as consulting with Walt Disney for the dinosaur sequence in Fantasia.
Barnum Brown died in 1963, just a few days shy of his 90th birthday. If you visit the American Museum of Natural History today, most of the dinosaur fossils on display were excavated by him. And a little closer to home, if you want to see the Triceratops skull he unearthed on his first dig, you can visit the KU Biodiversity and Natural History Museum, where it is still on display. ###
Commentator Katie Keckeisen is a local history librarian for the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library. She lives in Topeka.
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