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| The AMNH scow Mary Jane in 1911. Left to right: Henry Fairfield Osborn (AMNH); Fred Saunders (cook from Stettler, Alberta) and Barnum Brown (AMNH) |
Barnum Brown (yes, he was named after P.T. Barnum of traveling circus fame) wasn't much of an egghead or innovator; rather, he made his name early in the 20th century as the chief fossil hunter for New York's American Museum of Natural History, for which purposes he preferred dynamite to pickaxes. Brown's exploits whetted the American public's appetite for dinosaur displays, especially at his own institution, now the most famous dinosaur depository in the entire world.
Barnum Brown discovered the first documented remains of Tyrannosaurus rex during a career that made him one of the most famous fossil hunters working from the late Victorian era into the early 20th century.