S8 Ep584: 2. David K. Randall, *The Monster's Bones: The Discovery of T-Rex and How It Shook Our World*. In 1902, Barnum Brown tracked a lead from a photograph of a triceratops skull to Jordan, Montana. Though the specific skull was disappointing, Brown recognized
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John Batchelor
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🗓️ 16 March 2026
⏱️ 11 minutes
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Summary
2. David K. Randall, *The Monster's Bones: The Discovery of T-Rex and How It Shook Our World*. In 1902, Barnum Brown tracked a lead from a photograph of a triceratops skull to Jordan, Montana. Though the specific skull was disappointing, Brown recognized the potential of the remote Hell Creek region. Utilizing his unique skill for reading rock colors, he identified Sheba Mountain as a likely site for fossilization. He used dynamite to reveal a carnivorous dinosaur that had never been described before: the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Brown’s discovery was a "jackpot" for the American Museum, even though the process of transporting and mounting the heavy specimen would take years to complete. (2)
Butte, MT
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is CBSI in the world. I'm John Batchew with David Randall. His new book is The Monster's Bones. |
| 0:08.6 | This is the search for T-Rex. It is now 1873 and a child is born in Carbondale, Kansas. He is given |
| 0:18.2 | an unusual name, however, by his older brother. David, how is it that an older |
| 0:24.3 | brother gets to name a younger brother? Have you ever had that experience? No, and as a younger |
| 0:29.4 | brother, I'm glad I didn't. But so this was a time where the Barnums, they were, the Browns, I mean, I'm sorry, the Browns, they |
| 0:38.8 | were relatively prosperous. They're still farmers, though, so they're not rich by the |
| 0:42.7 | standards of a city. And they take their six-year-old son Frank up to the big city of Topeka, |
| 0:51.3 | and they go to PT Barnum's Great Traveling World's Fair. And, you know, this is a |
| 0:56.2 | six-year-old. You can't get this out of his mind. It's the most amazing thing he's ever seen in Kansas. |
| 1:00.5 | So six weeks later, his younger brother is born. And his parents couldn't decide on a name right away. |
| 1:07.6 | They'd already named both their older daughters after family, so that seemed to close that avenue. So Frank Burson and yells, let's call him Barnum. And, you know, his parents, |
| 1:17.7 | they thought there, and they looked to each other, and it didn't seem like it fit the showmanship |
| 1:21.9 | of P.T. Barnum and the flatlands of Kansas, but for some reason, it stuck. And suddenly you had |
| 1:27.4 | Barnum Brown ready to |
| 1:28.5 | face the world. Barnum Brown is in Osage County, and the Carbondale is a piece of farmland |
| 1:35.6 | that is ribboned, I imagine it, with coal deposits that come to the surface. This will later be a |
| 1:43.3 | source of revenue for his father. |
| 1:45.0 | It also reminded me of the Citizen Kane Rosewood moment. |
| 1:50.0 | When the mystery is never solved about Rosewood on the lips of our dying hero or protagonist, |
| 1:58.0 | Barnum Brown takes that imagination of the surface of another world rising into his. |
| 2:05.3 | At 16, he's exhausted the schooling in his hometown, and his parents resolved to send him to the University of Kansas, |
| 2:15.2 | or the early days of Kansas University in Lawrence. |
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