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Carter County - Model Nutrient Cycles

Background Info / Historical Story

“It is a matter of record that Thomas Johnston, one of the first settlers in what is now Carter County, camped and hunted buffalo in many places near the present site of Ekalaka. Buffalo bones were gathered for phosphate fertilizer and were also made into carbon for use in refining sugar. Thousands of tons were gathered by “bone hunters". The bones were usually hauled in wagons with a double box. They brought around ten dollars per ton.”- Shifting Scenes Volume 1

“Barnum Brown often visited the CCM and discovered the first documented remains of Tyrannosaurus rex in 1902 outside of Hell Creek, Montana. He also served as the chief bone collector for the American Museum of Natural History and helped assemble the largest collection of dinosaur bones in the world in the period of 1900-1930.165 All of these bones--predominantly from areas of Montana, the Dakotas and Wyoming--were deposited in the American Museum of Natural History. In a scrapbook kept by Walter Peck, an article from the October 19, 1934, edition of the Billings Gazette titled “Brown Winds Up Air Tour” describes the last chapter of a three-week expedition by Barnum Brown covering the area between Havre and Ekalaka, through the Black Hills and as far south as Cheyenne, Wyoming. This article and others are indicative of Brown’s mastery of publicity, not just for the American Museum of Natural History, but also for Sinclair Oil Company, whose name is prominently featured on the side of Brown’s airplane in association with the AMNH expedition. This serves as a prime example of the “dissemination of the dinosaur beyond the museum as a staple of popular culture, and the association with fossil fuels, which are a modern form of buried treasure.”- Sabre Moore

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