Have you ever thought about how the many dinosaurs on exhibit in museums across the country got there? What is the journey taken from the time the animal dies until it goes on display? Do all animals become fossils? If the path to becoming a fossil begins at the moment of death, then every plant and animal must run a gauntlet of forces, any of which can stop the process of fossilization.

Picture a Triceratops during its last day on Earth. After giving up the ghost (so to speak), a plethora of forces will begin attacking the future fossil.

First, the Triceratops might be exposed to animals that would like to make a meal out of its remains. This would include scavengers spreading the remains across a large area, wind and rain eroding away the remains, or even small insects and bacteria eating away at the bones. Ultimately, the remains need to be buried quickly, ushering them away from all these potential hazards.

Next, the remains must stay buried for thousands to millions of years. The main forces to avoid during this period are geological. The bones/fossils must survive all the geological forces that could potentially destroy them. These include mountain building, volcanoes, earthquakes, erosion, and landslides (to name only a few).

So is that it? Now that the bones have become fossils, they just wind up in the museum for us to enjoy, right? Not quite.

Now it is time for the remains to come to the surface. This step is really about timing. The fossils must be exposed on the surface and be discovered. Sounds easy enough right? Well, there is a catch. Not only do they need to be visible but they need to be visible to someone who recognizes them for what they are…fossils.

Visual representation of the fossilization process

Did dinosaurs recognize the fossils being exposed at their feet during their time walking the planet? Would you be able to recognize a fossil in the ground if you saw one? More to the point, would you be able to recognize a small part of an exposed fossil in the ground? Often, when fossils are discovered, only a fraction of the bone is exposed, while the rest is still buried under the surface. The fossils must be collected before the elements have had a chance to erode them away. How many fossils of ancient animals simply disappeared because they were exposed at the surface at the wrong time? How many fossils of shells, fish, or ancient reptiles did the dinosaurs destroy because they were walking on them?

Lastly, if you found the partially exposed fossil and recognized it for what it was, could you get it out of the ground intact? Someone could find the most beautiful or significant fossil ever discovered, but if they can’t get it out of the ground without it breaking into dozens or more pieces, they have only a useless pile of fragments-- not something that could go on display at a museum.

The final leg of the journey is entirely reliant on humans. The collected fossils now must travel safely back to a lab or museum, be removed from the remaining rock/dirt matrix, and still be in good enough shape to go into an exhibit. This often means not only the quality of the fossil must be good, but the fossil must also fit into the theme of the exhibit.

The dinosaur exhibit at the ND Heritage Center State Museum

The next time you walk through a fossil exhibit, I hope you remember that all the fossils you see on exhibit traveled this path. Do you ever think about what we are leaving future humans to discover about us?

Municipal steel water towers are currently my sideline research project. From what I have gathered so far, the research better speed up because the towers are coming down rapidly. I’ve been able to uncover 69 traditional-style water towers in North Dakota in the past three years, and in that time seven of them have been pulled down or are scheduled to be demolished.¹ I’m working with the Bureau of Reclamation to document some of these vital infrastructure elements prior to their razing.

Water towers are the most visible component of a municipality’s investment in a public potable water and sewer system, and provide pressure to move water through the system and storage capacity.

Stanley, North Dakota, provides a typical history of infrastructure development with the establishment of the community to provide coal and water for the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway (later the Great Northern Railway) railroad locomotives in 1887, a post office in 1899, and more than 40 businesses by 1906. In May 1908 the Stanley Village Board organized and began passing ordinances to establish streets and sidewalks, a telephone system, road and bridge maintenance, and a village well in 1909. By 1915, with Stanley’s population growing to more than 500, the Stanley Electric Company was established and a water and sewer system installed, along with a city well nearby. In 1917 the Minneapolis Steel and Machine Builders constructed the Stanley water tower, which remains in use today, to create pressure in the water supply system.²

Gregory R. Mathis Steel Water Towers Associated with South Dakota Water Systems, 1894 – 1967. Used with permission of the SD State Historical Society. Full context available at: http://history.sd.gov/preservation/OtherServices/SDWaterTowers.pdf

The structural side of documenting this group of water towers is straightforward, but documenting the manufacturer of each tower is more difficult. This traditional form of steel water tower has four steel legs, a center riser pipe, and a hemispherical bottom on the tank. Other identifying features are the guardrail around the circumference of the tank and the characteristic conical cap topped by a vent. From about 1900 to the 1960s, several regional water tower manufacturers dominated the market for construction of these handsome structures, but only two have been definitively documented to date. Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel Company and Minneapolis Steel & Machinery are the two manufacturers that supplied the towers to North Dakotan municipalities. The towns typically either hired the manufacturer’s own construction company or a regional builder who trained specialized teams to construct them.³

City of Flaxton Water Tower, Susan Quinnell.

It has been far more difficult to identify the “soft side” of municipal water development. Some municipalities got behind their water system construction projects quickly and efficiently. Williston’s project sailed through completion on the tide of progressive city officials who, by 1917, had built the water filtration plant, water tower and supply system, and paid off the municipal bond indebtedness of $40,000, primarily with the proceeds of the sale of water.⁴ Meanwhile other towns struggled to find local support for their pure water supply projects, even with the North Dakota Department of Health providing concrete evidence of rising levels of bacteria in individual wells sampled within the city limits of Northwood. This 1937 – 1939 project was one of many funded in part (45 percent) by the federal government’s Public Works Administration program to provide a reliable source of pure water and water for fire protection.⁵ My research continues with analysis of water tower types by geographic location and a search for the build dates on each municipality’s water tower.

¹Survey of City Auditors taken by e-mail February & March, 2017, and Google Maps
² William Stark, Stanley Water Tower: Context and History Stanley, North Dakota, 2008. SHSND, Archaeology and Historic Preservation Division manuscript collection, MS. 11258.
³ Survey of North Dakota City Auditors and Ronald E. Spreng, “They Didn’t Just Grow There: Building Water Towers in the Post War Era,” Minnesota History, (Winter 1992): 130 – 141.
⁴ Williston Graphic, March 29, 1917, 19.
⁵ William Start, Northwood and the Public Works Administration: A Brief History of Northwood, North Dakota’s Waterworks and Sanitation Systems, 2008. SHSND Archaeology and Historic Preservation manuscript collection, MS. 10400.

History isn’t just in the past—it’s being made every day. Our mission includes collecting from the contemporary world because we want to preserve what it’s like to be a North Dakotan right now. We have a duty to document and preserve our current time for the historical record so future generations can study it and come to understand it.

The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) project has many people expressing strong feelings on all sides of the issue. The scale and intensity of the pipeline protests are unprecedented in the state’s history. No matter what your stance, the controversy has become a significant part of North Dakota’s story and is worthy of preservation in the historical record.

We decided to start collecting objects related to this movement in November. We feared that if we waited too much longer, some of the objects that tell the story would be discarded by their owners.

Our public efforts started with a Dec. 23 article in the Bismarck Tribune, which outlined the objects we wanted to collect. We want to collect items to tell varying viewpoints of this ongoing story. Every perspective is equally important to help understand an event. We have reached out to private companies, law enforcement, state, tribal, and federal government agencies, counter protest groups, and people living at the camps to request donations. Our finalized list contained 28 groups or individuals to contact.

We first announced our collecting efforts with a December 23 article in the Bismarck Tribune, which gave a basic outline of what we wanted to collect and why we were gathering objects.

Donovan, Lauren. “Museum aims to collect objects from protest.” Bismarck Tribune, Dec. 23, 2016. Accessed Feb. 28, 2017. http://bismarcktribune.com/news/state-and-regional/museum-aims-to-collect-objects-from-protest/article_a1b1fa2b-73cb-5c97-81ed-f3097b63ea99.html

Our first influx of artifacts came from a Feb. 3 staff visit to the Oceti Sakowin camp, which was being dismantled at the time. Someone at the camp directed us to a pile of items being discarded as residents left. We selected 37 objects that we felt encapsulated daily life at the camps, including sleeping bags, camp chairs, signs, and canned goods. We also took the opportunity to talk with people we encountered about what we were doing and encouraged them to donate.

Museum Division staff visited the Oceti Sakowin protest camp on February 3. It was very quiet (not to mention cold), as most people had left, and the camp was being dismantled. We collected 37 artifacts and spoke with residents of the camp about what we were doing.

We primarily collected from a large pile of items that had been discarded as people left the camp. We tried to select items that would encapsulate camp life like a sleeping bag, camp chair, canned food, and hiking boots. Pictured is Registrar Len Thorson examining the pile.

In addition to artifacts, we are interested in recording interviews with people from all sides of the story so we can have firsthand accounts of their experiences, which will add another layer to the three dimensional artifacts we are collecting.

Our goal is to assemble a comprehensive index of an important event in North Dakota history. Do you have something to add to the narrative?

We have received items from a variety of sources.

Work is nearing completion on restoration of the historic hospital/cafeteria at Fort Totten State Historic Site. Throughout the winter of 2017 we’ve developed, designed, and installed new exhibit spaces throughout the building. Agency staff members have been hard at work for several weeks customizing the exhibit display booths and preparing objects for exhibition. Interpretation themes for visitors to explore include the frontier military hospital and industrial boarding school cafeteria as well as the extensive collections of the Pioneer Daughters of the Lake Region who have occupied the building since 1960.

When we last left off, the exhibit cubes were under construction (blog.statemuseum.nd.gov/blog/totten-restoration-update). The past few weeks have been spent outfitting the individual spaces and tailoring them to themes related to the Pioneer Daughter’s collections including military, Victorian era clothing and accessories, pioneer kitchen accessories, farm tools, and toys from the turn of the century.

Fort Totten site supervisor Kyle Nelson outfits one of the exhibit cubes with 1870-era wood siding sourced from his family’s original homestead in Nelson County.

Historic Sites Manager Guinn Hinman (right) works with volunteer Alison Hinman (Dickinson Museum Center) on preparing a military uniform for exhibit.

The completed exhibit—showcasing the dress uniform of H.M. Creel who founded Devils Lake.

World War I artifacts housed in the vast collections of the Pioneer Daughters of the Lake Region being assessed and prepared for exhibition.

Ramone Gumke of Newman Signs (Jamestown) prepares to install a large graphic depicting a turn-of-the century printing press in an exhibit cube at the hospital/cafeteria at Fort Totten State Historic Site.

A view of some of the completed exhibit cubes in the west wing of the hospital/cafeteria at Fort Totten State Historic Site.

The Grand Opening for the hospital/cafeteria and re-opening of the museum of the Pioneer Daughters is scheduled for May 20, 2017. Stay up to date on the restoration process and see more photos on the Fort Totten Facebook page: facebook.com/FortTottenSHSND

Working with Archives’ film collections, it’s not out of the ordinary to come across something special once in a while. On January 26 I was searching through our film database for a requested topic when I spotted “Muhammad Ali” in a description. Immediately I figured this was a clip from the national news or something, and then I read the whole thing: “WDAZ Muhammed Ali talks with Boyd Christenson at the train depot.” “Wow!” I thought. “What could this be?” The database indicated it had not been digitized, so I went back to the storage vault and pulled core 2490 from the WDAY/WDAZ TV news collection 10351. It is 16mm film on a core with a total of 20 segments. The clip is nearly eight minutes and is a treasure.

For those too young to have been around during Ali’s boxing career here is a little refresher:

Muhammad Ali was born in 1942 as Cassius Clay in Louisville, Kentucky. He won the gold medal for boxing in the 1960 Olympics, turned professional boxer, and became the second youngest heavyweight champion of the world in 1964. Clay would convert to Islam in the 1960s and change his name to Muhammed Ali. He had his title stripped from him and was banned from boxing for three years for refusing to be inducted into the armed forces because of his religion and his anti-Vietnam war stance. He was later acquitted. Following his suspension, Ali would capture, lose, and recapture the heavyweight title several times throughout the 1970s. His last fight was in 1981. In 1984 he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. He passed away on June 3, 2016.

On January 27, 1969, Ali, AKA “The Greatest,” was in North Dakota. North Dakota Sportscaster and eventual Sportswriter Hall of Famer Boyd Christenson of WDAY TV in Fargo interviewed Ali at the Fargo train station. In the interview, Ali speaks about civil rights, black society, and……the weather! How else could The Greatest have ended up in Fargo?

The following day the Forum read, “The champ, unstoppable in the ring, was decked here Monday by the North Dakota weather en route from his New York home to the west coast by car. Ali found the northern climate too much for a left jab and ended up in a snow bank.”

Enjoy the clips! Take a look at the full clip and a short one where Ali tells us why he’s in Fargo.

“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.”
—Dorothea Lange

Photographs are one of my favorite tools to use as a museum educator. One technique I like to use, known as a Visual Thinking Strategy (VTS), is a very simple and effective way for people to start to see more in an image than they otherwise would have noticed. There are three main steps to follow:

1. Show an image to your audience—either project it on a screen in front of a classroom, or pass it around so everyone can get a good look at the details.
2. Ask students to sit silently and look closely at the image for a minute or two.
3. Guide the students through a series of questions that help them think critically about the image and start asking questions of their own.

We might start with an image like this one:

Tintype portrait of unidentified group of African American women. SHSND 10737-310.

After taking in all the details for a couple of minutes, I would first ask my audience to tell me what is going on in the photograph. It is important that we don’t tell them what we want them to know. We have to be patient and let them make observations; compare and contrast their own answers; and start asking questions. We can keep the conversation going by asking follow up questions—“What makes you say that?” and “What more can we find?” This will help students continue their observations and will help them associate details in the image with their own personal experiences or prior knowledge.

This is a great activity for teachers of any discipline. English teachers can use this activity to initiate a creative writing activity. Science teachers can use this to connect observations of an image to classroom lessons such as identifying physical properties of an object. Math teachers can use images this way to help make connections for students between the real world and abstract concepts—for example, you could ask younger students to find basic shapes or to add or subtract the number of items in an image.

This exercise is great for someone teaching North Dakota Studies or other history classes. We can talk about the clothing and interior décor styles of past decades. We can talk about how a historian or archivist could do some detective work to try to find out more about who these unidentified women are. We could even talk about the preservation of historic images, and the process used to create a tintype.

Using a strategy like VTS gets people to start noticing details and interpreting what is going on in an image. Students begin to understand how other people might have a completely different understanding of what is going on in an image than they did. I always try to pair appropriate images to any lesson I’m teaching so that students start to exercise their history detective muscles. It can spark an interest in students of all ages.