In July 1999, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh unveiled a life-size statue of the Diplodocus dinosaur that has been the centerpiece of the museum’s paleontology department since the turn of the previous century. The fossilized remains of “Dippy,” as the creature is affectionately known, was initially discovered in Wyoming exactly one hundred years earlier, on July 4, 1899, by bone hunters employed by the Carnegie Museum.
While Dippy has been an icon in Pittsburgh for well over a century, the city is not alone in its adulation of the prehistoric dinosaur. An exact replica of Dippy’s fossilized skeleton greets visitors at the Natural History Museum in London, and additional replicas can be found in other museums across the globe, including those in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Moscow, Madrid, and Mexico City – making Dippy arguably the most famous dinosaur in the world.
As Paul Barrett, Sandra Chapman, and Polly Parry note in their 2010 book Dippy: The Tale of a Museum Icon, the first remains of a Diplodocus were discovered in Canon City, Colorado, in 1877 by bone hunters under the employment of Othniel C. Marsh, one of the two most infamous dinosaur experts in the United States during the time period. Marsh and his rival Edward D. Cope organized dozens of expeditions to the American Midwest, fertile ground for fossilized bones of numerous species.
Marsh employed a Union Pacific Railroad foreman named William Reed to hunt for dinosaur bones in Wyoming, and while Reed made many discovers for Marsh, he also changed employers on numerous occasions. It was while working for the University of Wyoming in 1898 that Reed unearthed a collection of bones that were dubbed the “most colossal animal ever on Earth” by the media. Steel magnet Andrew Carnegie read an article about the discovery in the New York Journal and immediately decided that he wanted the remains for a museum he had recently founded in Pittsburgh.
The task of acquiring the fossilized bones fell to Carnegie Museum Director William J. Holland. He contacted William Reed with offers to both purchase the remains out right as well as hire Reed as a consultant. Since Reed was employed by the University of Wyoming at the time of his discovery, the ownership of the fossils was in dispute, and Holland attempted to circumvent the other institution through legal means.
It was all for naught, however, as Reed’s discovery wasn’t “colossal” after all, but by then additional bone hunters employed by the Carnegie Museum were combing the Wyoming wilderness searching for other relics. On July 4, 1899, their efforts reached paid off when they unearthed the toe bone from the hind foot of what would become known as Dippy the Dinosaur.
The fossilized skeleton remains were soon on their way to the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, and resident paleontologist John Bell Hatcher published a scientific overview of the Diplodocus fossils in 1901. Hatcher determined that Dippy was a new species of Diplodocus and dubbed it “Diplodocus carnegii” in honor of Andrew Carnegie. He also created an illustrated reconstruction of the bones, using descriptions from other Diplodocus discoveries to fill in the few missing pieces of the Carnegie Museum’s dinosaur.
A framed print of the drawing was sent to Scotland, where Andrew Carnegie displayed it at Skibo Castle, his Scottish residence. In 1902, King Edward VII visited Carnegie and became enchanted by the illustration, remarking that he would like to have a similar dinosaur for the British Museum. When contacted by Carnegie, William Holland – believing the odds of finding another Diplodocus in such pristine condition to be miniscule – suggested crafting a cast replica for the king instead.
Construction of the replica began in 1903, with each original bone of Dippy duplicated in plaster-of-paris and painted black to give it the appearance of an original fossil. By December 1904, the task was completed. Thirty-six crates containing the replicated bones of a Diplodocus arrived in Great Britain the following month, with Holland and chief technician Arthur Coggeshall likewise making the journey across the Atlantic Ocean.
After several painstaking months of mounting the plaster casts on an iron frame, the dinosaur was finally finished – making the Dippy of the Natural History Museum in London the first full skeleton of a sauropod dinosaur ever put on display.
Dippy was officially unveiled on May 12, 1905, to great fanfare in the British media, and the public flocked to the museum in droves to see Dippy for themselves. Word of Andrew Carnegie’s gift to King Edward VII soon spread as well, and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany was the next monarch to inquire about having his own dinosaur, with additional countries making similar requests shortly thereafter.
With the casts of the bones already created, Carnegie and William Holland were happy to oblige, and it wasn’t long before museums in Paris, St. Petersburg, Madrid, and Berlin likewise had a Dippy on display. Ironically, the original bones were not mounted until 1907 – two years after the replica in London – finally allowing Pittsburgh to add its name to the worldwide list of locales that could boast of having their very own Dippy the Dinosaur.
Dippy’s popularity rose even higher when the dinosaur later appeared in cartoon drawings in newspapers around the globe, as well as a tavern song celebrating both Dippy and Andrew Carnegie’s generosity. Dippy was also the centerpiece of the 1975 Disney film One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing, a spy comedy about microfilm being hidden inside the bones of the British Museum’s dinosaur.
Most of the Dippy replicas are still on display, keeping the dinosaur in the public’s eye throughout Europe and North America over one hundred years after its first unveiling in London – meaning that while Dippy the Dinosaur’s true home may be in Pittsburgh, he actually belongs to the entire planet.
Anthony Letizia