Hell Creek

THE OVERLOOK

By Tom Clavin

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It was 61 years ago this week that a most remarkable American explorer passed away. In the 1890s in the United States the “Wild West” was closing but another one was opening that also captured the imagination of many Americans as well as Europeans – the hunt for our history through the finding of fossils. In this new era, no one was more famous than Barnum Brown – yes, he was named after the flamboyant circus impresario. He could have been nicknamed “Jurassic Jones” because he was the Indiana Jones of paleontology, trotting around the globe making discoveries that fascinated the public and advanced exponentially the knowledge of creatures who once roamed the earth. This swashbuckling gunslinger of his time romanced the ladies between and sometimes during all kinds of “digs,” and he found time to be a spy in two world wars.

          Brown’s greatest discovery remains the greatest discovery in paleontology: In 1908, in what is known as the Hell Creek Formation in southeastern Montana, he found and excavated the first documented remains of Tyrannosaurus rex – and a complete one at that. Now the most popular and fascinating of dinosaurs, Brown’s discovery confirmed that such a creature had existed and lived in the continental United States.

          The back story of Barnum Brown, whose actual nickname was “Mr. Bones,” began in February 1873 when he was born in Kansas, a few days after his mother had been enthralled by the visiting circus and P.T. Barnum. This was during the era of the “cow towns” like Wichita and Dodge City in Kansas, so the youngster had some of the Wild West in his blood.

          The family farm grew such crops as beans and corn but Brown’s father also dug up coal to sell to the railroad companies laying track across the state. As he helped his father, Barnum found hundreds of rocks shaped like shells. Millions of years before, that part of Kansas had been at the bottom of an ocean. When sea creatures died, their shells and skeletons sank to the bottom where they were covered with sediment, and over time that sediment became rock. These were the fossils the fascinated boy was finding and he determined this would be his life’s work.

          Barnum studied paleontology at the University of Kansas and went on his first fossil-hunting expeditions. He loved the adventures, even in the high heat of the desert and deep snow of the mountain passes. He showed enough promise and enthusiasm that the American Museum of Natural History in New York hired him. With more of the public fascinated by fossils and the window they opened to the planet’s past, major universities and museums were courting and fielding the most talented hunters they could employ. With childish eagerness, these men (and a few women) went off on treasure hunts and were finding the bones of such impressive creatures as Brontosaurus, Triceratops, and Stegosaurus.

          Quickly, Brown became the AMNH’s most effective field man. He thrived roaming the hills and prairies and plains of the American West and had a divining-rod sense of where valuable fossils were. Brown’s boss claimed that young man had the ability to smell underground fossil sites. With each new dig there were discoveries of dinosaurs and Brown’s exploits were reported in the major newspapers, especially when he discovered bones of the Jurassic dinosaurs Allosaurus and Apatosaurus in Wyoming in the 1890s as well as the largest Triceratops skull ever found.

Even at the most remote dig sites and surrounded by tall mounds of dirt, he was elegantly dressed, including a bowler hat, and in colder weather he wore a mink coat. The first Mrs. Brown was named Marion and she was quite accomplished. When they met in New York she was teaching science and working on a Master’s Degree in Biology. They married in February 1904.

          Despite a fair amount of domestic bliss, Brown’s expeditions expanded to other parts of the world. Invitations poured in from foreign governments hoping amazing creatures would be found within their borders too. The adventurer obliged, finding over four tons of fossils at sites in South America. During his travels, Brown survived a shipwreck and was almost killed by a mountain lion. On these journeys he was accompanied by Marion, until their daughter, Frances, was born.

          The success of Brown as a fossil finder greatly boosted the profile of the American Museum of Natural History . . . and this irked other institutions and those who funded them. John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, and other wealthy patrons began to underwrite expeditions with bankrolls that dwarfed what the AMNH could ante up. (One new species of dinosaur was named Diplodocus carnegii.) The competition was a fossil-hunting free-for-all. But these other efforts did not have what the AMNH had: Barnum Brown.

          He was drawn to the Hell Creek Formation in Montana. Some of it had been explored but most of the surrounding badlands had not. Brown spent the first weeks of the summer hunting season of 1908 roaming, his skin burned by the sun and blood sucked by mosquitoes. He knew others were out there looking too and the future of the AMNH depended on finding important fossils first – if there were any to find at all. On July 1, riding his horse Brownie, he saw an unusual rock glinting in the sun. It was the smooth, rounded end of a bone. Had the Holy Grail of paleontology been found?

          The next day, Brown and his crew went to work. Soon, the dig revealed the fossil remains of a creature that previously had only been rumored to have existed: Tyrannosaurus rex. The enormity of it was breathtaking – 47 feet long and 18 feet tall. At a celebration at a nearby ranch, Brown danced the tango and two-step until midnight.

Immediately, there were two more challenges – keeping this discovery a secret and getting the bones out of the formation and to New York City. To do the latter, dynamite had to be (delicately) used. Then the fossils were transported by horse-drawn wagons and packed onto train cars and hauled across the country. The rest of that summer and all of the following one were needed to complete the enormous task.

          All the effort proved worth it. Once the discovery of the complete T-Rex – accompanied by photographs – was published, there was a sensation not just in the scientific community but among the public as well. It had the impact similar to what the discovery of “Lucy” in 1974 would have on expanding the knowledge of Earth’s history and the descent of man in particular. Barnum Brown became world famous and would remain for the rest of his life the champion fossil finder.

          Finding the remains of the king of dinosaurs has remained the king of all fossil discoveries. Certainly its depiction was a big reason for the success of the book and then movie (and the sequels) Jurassic Park. Its representations and even just remnants are highlights in museums all over the world. What is this magnificent beast?

Like other tyrannosaurids, Tyrannosaurus was a bipedal carnivore with a massive skull balanced by a long, heavy tail. Relative to its large and powerful hind limbs, the forelimbs of Tyrannosaurus were short but unusually powerful for their size, and they had two clawed digits. The most complete specimen measures up to 40 feet in length, up to 13 feet tall at the hips, and according to most modern estimates, 8.4 metric tons to 14 metric tons in weight. Although other theropods rivaled or exceeded T-Rex in size, it is still among the largest known land predators and is estimated to have exerted the strongest bite force among all terrestrial animals. By far, it was the largest carnivore in its environment.

Once the T-Rex was put on display, the AMNH became world famous and a must-see stop for visitors to New York City. Barnum Brown could have remained in New York resting on his laurels. This actually became a necessity when his wife, after only a few years of marriage, died suddenly of scarlet fever, meaning he had to raise their daughter on his own.

          But then, he didn’t. The call of the hunt was too strong. Leaving Frances in the care of his in-laws, Brown was off once more. His river-rafting hunt for fossils in Canada caused headlines, he hunted while riding elephants in India, he criss-crossed the American West by plane, he conducted diving expeditions off Cuba. And during both World War I and World War II, his expeditions in Europe and Asia served as cover for spying activities on behalf of the U.S. military. (Frances, by the way, would grow up to become a dean at Radcliffe College and write a mostly admiring memoir about her father.)

          Along the way, 15 years after his wife died and having indulged in numerous affairs (including with a Russian spy), Brown found another wife. Lilian not only accompanied Brown on his expeditions but wrote three books published about them: I Married a Dinosaur, Cleopatra Slept Here, and Bring ‘Em Back Petrified. They would be together until Brown’s death. That occurred in February 1963, one week short of celebrations in New York City that would mark his 90^th birthday. Today, Brown’s grave can be found in the River View Cemetery in Oxford, NY, cozily between those of his two wives.

          Right before his death, Brown completed Dinoland, which became by far the most popular pavilion at the 1964 World’s Fair.

Tom Clavin is the bestselling author/co-author of 25 books. Now out in hardcover from St. Martin’s Press is The Last Outlaws and coming in May is Throne of Grace (with Bob Drury). Please go to your local bookstore or to Bookshop.org, Amazon.com, BN.com, or tomclavin.com to purchase/pre-order a copy.