125 Years Ago, The Largest Dinosaur Of The Time Was Unearthed In Albany County

All of Wyoming — and the world — had a reason to celebrate the Fourth of July this week. It's the 125th anniversary of the discovery of one of the most iconic and significant paleontological discoveries ever: Dippy, the Star-Spangled Dinosaur.

In 1899, the 87-foot skeleton of the Jurassic giant discovered in Albany County took the world by storm and still stands in places of honor in museums around the globe. It sparked a scientific revolution and fueled competition between the world's most prestigious museums.

But the story of the Star-Spangled Dinosaur started with a few eroded bits of rock on a private ranch in southern Wyoming. It wasn't the first fossil discovery, but it might still be Wyoming's most significant.

"Millions of people have seen this Wyoming dinosaur," state historian Tom Rea told Cowboy State Daily. "There was a dinosaur rush in the first 10 years of the 20th century, but this was the first time there was a whole skeleton. Enough bones to understand this dinosaur and put it up. It was a new kind of celebrity."

Rea published the book “Bone Wars: The Excavation and Celebrity of Andrew Carnegie's Dinosaur” in 2001. The book chronicles the story of the discovery and subsequent fame of Diplodocus carnegii (aka Dippy), and how the fossilized bones sent shockwaves worldwide at the turn of the 20th century.

The story of Carnegie's Diplodocus is more than a paleontological curiosity. Rea's book depicts it as it was: A scientific and cultural phenomenon for Wyoming and the world.

"It was a really big deal," he said. "So many things were coming together at the time. Science, money, mass publicity, and the general curiosity of the public all came together around 1900 to make this happen."

Bits And Pieces

The Star-Spangled Dinosaur got its name from the significant day of its discovery. Found on July 3, 1899, the fossils make up the most colossal dinosaur skeleton ever found at the time.

William Harlow Reed, a Wyomingite and fossil hunter, was prospecting along Sheep Creek in Albany County. Reed had been finding and excavating dinosaurs for more than a decade and was exploring a new and potentially fossil-rich area.

The first fossil Reed found in Sheep Creek was a single-toed one. As he continued exploring the site, he knew that he'd stumbled onto something significant.

"When they first got there, they saw the spine bone weathering out of the ground," Rea said. "They found long vertebrae, tails, hips and ribs all pretty much articulated. The large parts of two dinosaurs, both Diplodocus, right near each other on Sheep Creek."

Diplodocus was a long-necked sauropod that lived during the Late Jurassic Period, around 148 million years ago. It was still relatively new to science in 1899. Fossils of it found elsewhere in Wyoming were first described by paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh in 1878.

Thousands of tons of dinosaur fossils had been excavated, loaded onto railroad cars and shipped to museums on the East Coast, but Reed's Diplodocus skeletons were better preserved and more complete than any previous discovery. In addition to their immense size, many of the fossils were still connected in life position, which paleontologists call "articulation."

Furthermore, the two skeletons were roughly the same size from the same type of dinosaur. Whichever museum acquired the fossils could erect a complete skeleton of one of the largest dinosaurs that ever lived.

"The great majority of the dinosaur came right out of the ground at Sheep Creek," Rea said, "and they had enough parts between the two of them to put one together."

Go Get It

Reed capitalized on the discovery almost immediately. When the New York Journal and Advertiser got word of a huge dinosaur in Wyoming, it ran the headline: "Most Colossal Animal Ever on Earth Just Found Out West."

"It was a big full-page spread about the biggest dinosaur on Earth," Rea said.

That headline captured the immediate interest of Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish-American industrialist and one of the richest people in American history. As soon as he heard about the Star-Spangled Dinosaur, he was willing to do whatever it took to get it.

"Carnegie liked big things, and he had an enormous sense of himself even though he was only 5 feet 3 inches," Rea said. "He contacted William Holland, the head of the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, and directed him to go to Wyoming and get this dinosaur for his museum."

Holland didn't waste any time. He hired Reed and a cadre of others to excavate the immense fossils and ship them to Pittsburgh. It took two summers to excavate the Diplodocus skeletons, along with hundreds of other Jurassic fossils found in the same quarry.

Meanwhile, John Bell Hatcher, the paleontologist who found the first Triceratops in 1888, supervised the excavation while working on a detailed study of Carnegie's dinosaur. In 1901, he published a lavish monograph detailing each bone from the two skeletons, which he named Diplodocus carnegii in honor of its benefactor.

Hatcher's study included a scientific illustration of Carnegie's Diplodocus, including the bones that hadn't been found in the quarry. Carnegie kept a framed picture of his Diplodocus in Skibo Castle, his home in Scotland.

That's where King Edward VII beheld the Star-Spangled Dinosaur. Edward was a trustee of the Natural History Museum in London and was captivated by Carnegie's Diplodocus.

"The king came for lunch one day, and there was a picture of the Diplodocus over the fireplace," Rea said. "Carnegie says, 'That's my namesake. The largest animal that ever walked the earth.' And the king said, 'Can we get one for the British Museum?' And Carnegie said, 'I'll see what I can do.'"

An American Dinosaur In London

Holland must've gone pale when Carnegie told him he'd promised the King of England a colossal dinosaur. They weren't even close to finishing the fossils of Carnegie's Diplodocus for their museum.

"Knowing the amazing difficulties in toil and trouble they'd gone through to get that particular dinosaur, Holland said no," Rea said. "But they both realized they could make casts, and that's what happened."

Holland and his museum staff made immense molds of the Diplodocus fossils they'd found in Sheep Creek and produced exact replicas of each by filling the molds with plaster. The missing bones, including the skull, were sculpted to the highest scientific accuracy and needed dimensions to create one complete dinosaur skeleton for the Natural History Museum.

By April 1905, a replica of Carnegie's 87-foot-long Diplodocus was unveiled in the Natural History Museum of London. It was the first time such a large dinosaur had ever been fully reconstructed and mounted in lifelike position, and nothing like it had ever been seen before.

"Prior to mounting complete skeletons, most people would only be able to see individual bones or a partial skeleton," said Brent Breithaupt, the regional paleontologist for the Bureau of Land Management in Cheyenne. "They wouldn't see the entire extent of the 85-foot-long dinosaur. Because this dinosaur was put on display, it allowed the public to have a much better understanding about dinosaurs."

Ironically, the replica of Carnegie's Diplodocus in Britain was unveiled two years before the real fossils were mounted in Pittsburgh. The existing museum was too small for the 87-foot-long giant, so Holland oversaw an expansion built to accommodate the colossal dinosaur that wouldn't be finished until 1907.

Even more ironically, Carnegie's Diplodocus wasn't even the world's first mounted sauropod.

Determined to be the first to resurrect a massive dinosaur and usurp their Pittsburgh counterparts, the American Museum of Natural History in New York unveiled a Brontosaurus skeleton, assembled from real fossils from Wyoming, in February 1905.

Dinosaur Diplomacy

Carnegie donated "Dippy the Diplodocus" to the Natural History Museum and the British people.

His great-grandson, William Thomson, categorized the donation as "dinosaur diplomacy," a way to unite the world through scientific advancement.=

Dippy, the diplomatic Diplodocus, had the desired effect in Europe.

After the official unveiling ceremony, both Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and President Émile Loubet of France approached Carnegie about getting giant dinosaurs for their national museums.

"They said they'd like some casts too, so they started making those arrangements," Rea said. "Between 1905 and 1913, replicas of the Star-Spangled Dinosaur were donated to London, Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Vienna, Bologna, Madrid, La Plata and Mexico City."

Millions of people have seen Carnegie's Diplodocus, making it one of the most famous dinosaur specimens ever found. Even amidst the enduring celebrity of Tyrannosaurus rex, which entered the public realm later in 1905, Diplodocus defined the enduring image of dinosaurs.

"Diplodocus carnegii is iconic because it was seen worldwide," Breithaupt said. "For people that would eventually become paleontologists, it could have been the first dinosaur they had seen."

A popular poem from the 1900s attempted to capture the pre-hysteria over Carnegie's prehistoric colossus.

Crowned heads of Europe

All make a royal fuss

Over Uncle Andy

And his old Diplodocus

Wyoming's Dinosaur Conquered The World

The original skeleton of Carnegie's Diplodocus, the Star-Spangled Dinosaur, is on display at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, and nearly all the replicas still stand in the preeminent museums of their respective nations.

Yet amidst international acclaim and scientific significance, it's easy to forget that the story of the world's most famous dinosaur had its humble beginnings in Albany County.

Breithaupt had the opportunity to visit Sheep Creek Quarry D, where Reed found the articulated Diplodocus skeletons in 1899 that took the world by storm. Despite its historical significance, the site on a private ranch doesn't look like anything other than an overgrown hole in the ground.

"We went out there in 2010," he said. "We had a rough idea where it was because of historic photographs, and we were able to find the site by looking at the skyline to figure out where it was."

Even in 1899, Wyomingites wanted to keep the Star-Spangled Dinosaur in Wyoming. But Carnegie wanted the dinosaur and usually got what he wanted.

It wasn't a total loss for the Cowboy State. A Brontosaurus skeleton found by the Carnegie Museum in another Sheep Creek Quarry was eventually returned to Wyoming and still stands in the University of Wyoming's Geological Museum.

The story of Carnegie's Diplodocus may have become much bigger than Wyoming, but Rea doesn't think it's getting lost in the narrative.

"People grumble about all our fossils going other places, but it's good that these scientific treasures are well curated, interpreted and cared for," he said. "You could say these guys came out here and took all our great fossils back east and over to Europe, which is sort of true. But then what would happen otherwise if they hadn't done that? Nobody in Wyoming in 1900 had the money or the audience to build a huge museum where things like this could be put up and made for the world to see."

The Carnegie Museum invited Rea to speak at a special event in Pittsburgh to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the discovery of the Star-Spangled Dinosaur. For him, Carnegie's Diplodocus represents a full-circle journey in his personal and professional life.

"I live in Casper and grew up in Pittsburgh," he said. "I love the story because it connects my two favorite places on the planet."

Breithaupt sees the Star-Spangled Dinosaur as the more distinguished of Wyoming's dozens of dinosaur ambassadors. The Cowboy State's paleontological riches have and continue to enrich the entire world.

"Wyoming has some of the best-known dinosaurs," he said. "These dinosaurs are Wyoming's scientific and paleontological ambassadors of our rich scientific heritage in the State of Wyoming. That Diplodocus specimen went to many countries and became very well known. Even today, when children go to a museum for the first time, they'll see Carnegie's Diplodocus, found in Wyoming in 1899."

Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.