Help Us Fill St. Louis With Fossils

On October 17, we're filling the Saint Louis Science Center with fossils, scientists, artists, collectors, hands-on activities, and curious families—for the very first St. Louis Prehistoric Life Show. Admission is free, and we're raising $2,500 to help make this one-day celebration of Missouri's prehistoric past possible. If you love fossils, love science, or just want to give your neighbors the chance to wonder at something ancient, we'd love your help.

What happens when you put a Tyrannosaurus skull, nine hands-on fossil stations, a roomful of scientists, decades of private fossil collecting, paleoartists, and a whole lot of curious kids under one roof?

We're about to find out.

On October 17, the first St. Louis Prehistoric Life Show will take over the lower level of the Saint Louis Science Center. Admission is free—and we're asking our community to help us raise the $2,500 we need to make it happen.

How this started

The three of us started talking about this and couldn't stop. Jon Porter. Kristen Tippit. Asa Kaplan. We've spent more late nights at the kitchen table than we can count, sketching floor plans on scrap paper and asking each other whether people would actually come. Then we asked.

The answer kept being yes.

Fossil friends said yes. Then the people at the Saint Louis Science Center said yes—and did far more than open a door. They gave us the rooms, the guidance, and a real partnership.

A volunteer planning committee formed around us: people who show up on weeknights after their actual jobs because they want this to exist. Nobody organizing this show is getting paid. Every hour of it is a gift.

What you'll find inside

Lola will be there.

Lola is a Tyrannosaurus skull handcrafted in 2009 by St. Louis Community College student artist Nicki Conaway and once featured in Smithsonian magazine. She is big enough that you'll see her before you see almost anything else in the room. She'll be the centerpiece of a hall full of paleoart of all sorts.

You'll also be able to see the original documents and historic correspondence behind the designation of Missouri's official state fossil: the crinoid. Real letters, from real people, who decided that Missouri should have a fossil and then made it happen.

A caravan is coming in from Mizzou, bringing paleontologists and geologists who will run nine hands-on activity tables. Nine tables of people who spend their working lives studying Missouri's rocks, standing there all day and answering questions from whoever walks up.

There will be a rotating schedule of talks and live demonstrations from scientists, educators, and working fossil hunters.

There will be fossils from museum-quality private collections that the public almost never gets to see, including exceptional regional material and specimens gathered around the world. Some have never been displayed publicly before.

And there will be a Fossil Road Show station, where experts will take a look at whatever you've found in your yard, your creek, or your grandfather's garage.

Then there's the Trading Post: Bring a toy dinosaur. Take a toy dinosaur. While supplies last.

This is bigger than Saint Louis

This isn't just a St. Louis event. It's a gathering of a fossil community that usually exists in a dozen different places at once.

And exhibitors are coming from across the region and beyond.

Missouri has a remarkable fossil record - and a remarkable community of people who care about it. Most of those people have never been in the same room at the same time. On October 17, they will be.

What your money does

The show will cost about $5,000 to put on. We're starting here, with the first $2,500.

Your donation helps pay for:

That's it. No overhead. No payouts. No marketing agency.

Materials, hospitality, and paper.

The show is being built entirely by volunteers, and we intend to keep it that way.

Your gift is tax deductible

Paleoheritage is the nonprofit home for this event. Paleoheritage is a Missouri nonprofit corporation and an IRS-recognized 501(c)(3) public charity, EIN 41-4577606, dedicated to documenting and stewarding fossils, fossil sites, collections, and the human stories surrounding them, right here in St. Louis.

Because the show runs through Paleoheritage, your donation is tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. Funds raised through this campaign will support the St. Louis Prehistoric Life Show.

If we raise more than we need for the show, the balance will remain with Paleoheritage and support the same mission: documentation, stewardship, and public access to the fossil record in Missouri.

If you can't attend

A lot of the people who care about this live nowhere near Missouri—we’re hearing from them all the time. Fossil people are generous, and they're scattered. And if you're one of them, you can still be “in the room.”

Your $10 can buy a magnifying glass that a seven-year-old uses for the first time in her life.

Your $50 can help put fossil gravel on a table for kids to sort, or bring in a piece of Green River fish shale from three states away.

You don't have to walk through the door on October 17 to be part of what happens inside it.

And if you are local:

Attend.

It's free.

Bring the grandkids.

Bring the rock you've been carrying around in your pocket since 1984.

One more thing

Money is one way in.

Time is another.

We need volunteers for Friday setup, Saturday floor shifts, and Saturday breakdown. If you want a job at the show, get in touch through slpls.org.

We think St. Louis deserves a day like this. A day when a kid can meet a paleontologist. When somebody can finally find out what that weird rock in their garage actually is. When a fossil hunter can show something they've kept in a drawer for 40 years. When artists, scientists, collectors, museums, families, and curious strangers can all stand around the same table and talk about deep time.

Help us give St. Louis a day like this.

Learn more at slpls.org.

The St. Louis Prehistoric Life Show is an independent community event hosted in partnership with the Saint Louis Science Center.