Massachusetts rebels against British tyranny. Mississippi goes hunting with the president. Michigan refuses to leave Toledo. Minnesota celebrates Christmas with friends. And Montana listens to a war story. These are the stories of the 50 States of A...
Colorado. The 38th state located in the beautiful Rockies is known for its columbines, snow, craft beers, snow, cowboys, snow, and even more snow. Oh, they're also known to be high. Cuz, you know. The state is located at a high elevation. Haha...weed! In all seriousness, the state is known for many things, one of them being dinosaurs.
At the beginning of the 19th century in the United States, the first evidence of dinosaurs came in the form of preserved footprints along the East coast. Eventually, fossilized bones were found and soon dinosaurs skeletons were being collected from dig sites and assembled in museums. Paleontologists across America became wrapped up in not only finding fossils, but also discovering new ones, naming all sorts of species and studying their past lives within the bones they found. Two of the most avid paleontologists who made the biggest impact in the field were Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh.
Cope and Marsh came from different backgrounds. Cope was born from a wealthy, Quaker family in Pennsylvania, taught little formal education, and was known for his aggressive temperament. In contrast, Marsh was born from a poor, struggling family in New York, given an academic education thanks to a wealthy relative, and was widely known to be an orderly introvert. Upon their first meetings in Berlin and the first dinosaur discovery in America, the two were destined to become rivals. Their dirty schemes to debase one another's reputation have caused a quarrelsome, distrustful competition that took place during the Great Dinosaur Rush in the West, better known as the Bone Wars.
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In the year 1868, the Bone Wars began with the discovery of the completed skeleton of the Elasmosaurus in Haddonfield, New Jersey. Here is a short, possible summary on how it went.
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"Uh, dude," Mr. Marsh pointed to the dinosaur skull, "You totally misplaced the skull. Shouldn't the head be placed over there instead?" He pointed to the skull where it sat in front of the short 'neck', his gaze toward the long 'tail' on the opposite side of the skeleton.
He probably didn't put it like that, but let's go with it for laughs.
"Nuh-uh! You're being ridiculous. That's the correct spot." The curves of Mr. Cope white mustache twitched at his rival's assessment.
Mr. Marsh scoffed, "Are you an idiot? Your head must be on backwards if you think this is its neck. If that were true, your head would be up your ass."
Mr. Cope fumed. "I disagree, nitwit! My head is screwed in the right place while yours is up fifteen feet of fossilized bullshit! That's the neck and the other end is the tail!"
"You must be bonkers to think the Plesiosaurus holds its head up with its tail."
"It's the neck! The neck!"
More aggressive arguing and some name calling followed before the two agreed to have their mentor, Professor Joseph Leidy, a fossil collector and one of the founders of paleontology in America, to come solve the dispute. Mr. Leidy is also the first person to use a microscope and helped solve a murder mystery by distinguishing blood stains from those of a human; not a chicken. Cool guy!
