Earl Douglass

Earl Douglass with his hand on a Diplodocus specimen, Dinosaur National Monument (August 1922). Earl Douglass (October 28, 1862 – January 13, 1931) was an American paleontologist who discovered the dinosaur Apatosaurus, playing a central role in one of the most important fossil finds in North America. By 1922 Douglass had unearthed and shipped more than 700,000 pounds of material including nearly 20 complete skeletons of Jurassic dinosaurs such as Diplodocus, Dryosaurus, Stegosaurus, Barosaurus, Camarasaurus and Brontosaurus.

Early life and education Douglass was born on October 28, 1862, in Medford, Minnesota, the son of Fernando and Abigail Louisa Carpenter Douglass.

Douglass's early education was in the Medford public schools and the Pillsbury Academy in Owatonna, Minnesota, where he studied geology, paleontology, osteology, and mammalian anatomy. Later at the Shaw School of Botany at Washington University in St. Louis, he studied systematic botany and plant histology. He wrote the famous lines in his diary: "At last in the top of the ledge where the softer overlying [sandstone] beds form a divide -- a kind of saddle, I saw eight of the tail bones of a Brontosaurus in exact position. It was a beautiful sight." At first Douglass thought he had just one skeleton, and not until December did he realize just how extensive the bone deposit was in a letter to director Holland: “... the ledge is full of bones...We realize that we have a stupendous task and the men are working like beavers... If we stopped to consider what a terrible lot of work there is to do we might fall over...” The tail vertebrae connected to a nearly complete skeleton that was formally named Apatosaurus louisae, after Carnegie’s wife Louise. Excavating the site would occupy him and his crew for 13 years.thumb

Personal life Douglass married Pearl Charlotte Goetschius on October 20, 1905, and a few years later they had a son, Gawin Earl Douglass. Douglass died on January 13, 1931, in Salt Lake City, Utah.