History
Frederick Carl Kessler (1883-1963) was born on October 31, 1883 in Knob Lick, Missouri to German immigrants, and began his teaching career in Missouri where he taught in country schools for two years. But in 1907, Kessler headed west to Denver. In a newspaper interview with J. Andrew Smith, Kessler explained that his move to the West was inspired by tales of the rugged West and was fascinated by the exciting western life style, but instead of working on a ranch, Kessler ended up working at a dairy in Denver.
Two years later, Kessler found employment on a ranch in Granby, Colorado, located on the western end of the Trail Ridge Road in the Rocky Mountain National Park. Kessler was excited to be on a real working ranch, but disappointment soon ensued. When the ranch foreman learned of Kessler’s experience in the dairy, the foreman put Kessler to work milking the cows rather than rounding them up.2 It is unclear how long Kessler stayed with the cows, but it is obvious that ranching was not Kessler’s passion as he enrolled at the Colorado State Teachers College in Greeley to gain his teaching degree.3
Kessler was enrolled at the school for twelve years. He spent his summers at college and his winters teaching at school in rural communities to earn enough money to pay for his summer college classes. Upon completion of his teaching degree, Kessler hoped to secure a position as superintendent of schools, but when this was not forthcoming, Kessler took a teaching position in the Philippines teaching English in the American.–styled public education system where classes were conducted in English. Kessler’s time in the Philippines is not documented, but we know that he learned Spanish and saved most of his money while he was there.4 His return to the United States in 1925 was by way of a world tour, where he took in southern Asia, India, and Europe; stopping in Germany to visit relatives in the Rhineland area. He left Europe on a steamer bound for New York and arrived back in Denver in 1925. But not for long, as he secured a teaching position at Cañon City High School teaching History.5
Teaching and Discovery
Kessler was very involved in the education of all his students and provided extra-curricular activities in which his students readily participated. Kessler’s classes included a mix of history, natural history, and geology and he regularly took students into the hills and canyons surrounding Cañon City to study the natural environments and collect minerals. Kessler’s classes, originally intended for students not enrolled in the school’s ROTC program, proved so popular that other students began to join in with the weekend excursions.6 In 1928, encouraged by Dr. Richard Pearl of Colorado College, Kessler formed the Cañon City Geology Club. The club, still active today, continues with Kessler’s pursuance of informal education by organizing field trips and conducting educational outreach to local schools and community groups o
r organizations.2 Kessler and his students regularly worked in the area known as Shaws Park, which is located on the western side of Four Mile Creek and in the same vicinity of the Cope and Marsh quarries, and often used a natural amphitheatre to give talks to his students.
According to a history written by James “Holly” Meacham, a former student and close friend of Kessler, it was on such a trip to Shaws Park that Kessler’s students found their first dinosaur. In 1931, Kessler and a few students headed back towards the road by way of a short-cut to the south of the amphitheatre. One of the students found a dinosaur bone sticking out of a gulley bank and called Kessler over. At first, Kessler was not convinced by the young student’s original identification because the dinosaur bone was located much higher in the section than previously collected dinosaur bones in the area. But as Kessler took a closer look he soon realized that the student had indeed found a dinosaur bone. The following weekend, Kessler and some of the students went back to the site and began the work of uncovering a total of 13 vertebrae from the mudstones.8
Photographs taken in 1932 show the discovered Camarasaurus tail vertebrae. Over the following year or so, Kessler communicated with Jesse Figgins, the director of the Natural History Museum in Denver, about what should be done with the fossils. Kessler knew that he did not have the experience to remove the skeletal remains and was eager for the museum to come out and help with the excavations. From the correspondence, it appears that while Figgins was initially excited about the find his enthusiasm dwindled, and in 1933, Figgins told Kessler to cover up the find with a tarp and two feet of dirt. It is unclear what happened to these dinosaur bones and where they were located.9
An Important Discovery
Despite the disappointing experience with Figgins and the Denver museum, Kessler and the students continued their searches for more dinosaurs, but it was not until 1936 that a very special dinosaur was found. The dinosaur was located on private land on the eastern side of Four Mile Creek and north of Oil Well Flats. Recognizing that the excavation of the dinosaur would require much more effort and expertise than he possessed, Kessler, again, contacted the museum in Denver. In early 1937, two museum staff members travelled down to Cañon City to meet with Kessler. After viewing the remains, the museum staff determined that the “find” was an important scientific discovery and, once permission had been obtained from the landowner, made plans for the excavation of the dinosaur.
What Kessler and his students had discovered was an almost complete Stegosaurus. Never one to miss a learning opportunity for his students, Kessler made arrangements for his students to help with the museum’s excavations, and he also secured payment to the students through the National Youth Administration (NYA). The NYA was set up in 1935 as part of the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act, and under this administration the government hired young men and women between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five years of age to work on projects that enhanced public life. The wages were relatively low – twenty five cents per hour –, but the work provided students with experience and opportunity as well as much needed money.10 In Cañon City, Kessler convinced the high school principal that the dinosaur project was worthy of funding from the government, and with the principals backing, the project received approval from the federal government.11
The preparation and reconstruction of the Stegosaurus fell to the chief preparator at the Denver museum, Phillip Reinheimer. Although Reinheimer was an experienced preparator, the Stegosaurus was only the third complete dinosaur in the museum’s collection, so to ensure complete accuracy with the skeleton, Reinheimer headed back east to make a study of the dinosaur mounts already on display at the Field Museum in Chicago, the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the U.S. National Museum in Washington. On his return, Reinheimer and his workers started the careful work of removing the skeleton from the matrix, and then Reinheimer began the task of reconstructing the skeleton.12
Reinheimer soon realized that the skeleton was missing some key bones, such as foot bones, the tibia and fibula, the skull and lower jaw, and some vertebrae and ribs. Through a series of exchanges between the Denver museum and other museums’ back east, Reinheimer obtained “spare parts" and casts of the missing pieces. Because the foot bone has so many little bones in it, Reinheimer sought the help of vertebrate paleontologist Dr. Charles W. Gilmore of the Smithsonian Institute to sort out how all the bones fit together, and by 1939, the skeleton was ready to be displayed to the Denver museum-going public.13 The Stegosaurus joined the Diplodocus on public display and helped the museum to become the internationally-known research museum it is today.
The Later Years
Kessler continued working as a high school teacher until he retired in 1949, but his love of natural history and science never dwindled. In 1941, he produced a local guide to the natural history of the Cañon City area, and he was also a member of the Colorado and Wyoming Academy of Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. After he retired from teaching he became the curator of the city museum in Cañon City where he remained until his death in 1963, just one week short of his eightieth birthday.14
The legacy left behind by Kessler is important not only for the city, but for the state as well. In 1982, at the urging of school students, Kessler’s Stegosaurus was recognized as the state fossil of Colorado. (Click on the image below for a PDF copy)