WALTER GRANGER (1872-1941)

"Largely because of his efforts, the American Museum of Natural History in New York City became one of the leading scientific institutions of the world." Rapid City Daily Journal, September 11, 1941. "He has been regarded by all who knew him in all parts of the world as a gentleman of highest character and one of the greatest scientists of all time. He leaves a horde of valuable data on prehistoric eras and has thus enlightened his fellow men perhaps more than any other single person in all history." The Lusk Free Lance, September 11, 1941. "...'any statement made by Dr. Granger could be checked and found more nearly perfect than of any person [I] had ever met'..." William Diller Matthew, quoted posthumously by The Lusk Herald, September 11, 1941. "To the general public, perhaps, his name was unfamiliar. To scholars, it was known the world over." Rapid City Daily Journal, September 11, 1941. "Granger was so modest regarding his intellectual achievements and he so firmly acquired the habit of communicating knowledge orally rather than in writing, that perhaps only those who worked with him realized the full extent of his acquaintance with vertebrate morphology and taxonomy." Science, October 10, 1941. "I don't think that friendship is intruding on my scientific judgement when I claim for him the honor of having been the greatest collector of fossil vertebrates that ever lived. If all of you could handle the hundreds and thousands of specimens in this Museum that he has collected, you would begin to get some idea of his almost fabulously pre-eminent place in our science as a great collector." George Gaylord Simpson speaking of Walter Granger posthumously to a gathering in the Roosevelt Memorial Auditorium in the AMNH on November 25, 1941. "...[he] has earned the name: 'Daddy of the Gobi Desert.'" New Pioneer, February, 1938. "He is underappreciated as one of the great fossil collectors and scholars of the field." Discovering Dinosaurs, (Knopf, 1995).

"...The situation about Roy Andrews and Walter Granger is a little complicated...I knew both of them intimately and although I also liked them both, I always felt somewhat annoyed that Walter's modesty and Roy's conceit gave the wrong impression of their accomplishments. During all the fossil collecting in China, proper, and much of that in Mongolia[,] Granger was in complete charge and Andrews was not even present. During much of the collecting in Mongolia, however, including the early discoveries around Bayn Dzak, Andrews was present and in nominal charge of the expedition as a whole. Andrews' function, however, was that of obtaining funds and publicity and acting as business manager. He did none of the scientific work. All the fossil discoveries were made by Granger and assistants under his sole command. Just once Andrews tried to collect a fossil, and he destroyed it." George Gaylord Simpson in a letter dated December 14, 1970. "Thousands of persons to whom Dr. Walter Granger was at most a name nevertheless have been thrilled by his handiwork, for he largely was responsible for the towering skeletons of dinosaurs that awe visitors at the American Museum of Natural History." The New York Times, September 8, 1941. "Not only was his work known to museum-goers in New York, but he had also, through models, photographs, and his aid in preparing exhibits for other museums, made the ordinary American possibly more familiar with the skeleton of the great prehistoric lizard than that of the cow, with resulting gain in popular interest in paleontology." The New York Times, September 8, 1941. "First and last, his real love was the field and he was unquestionably one of the greatest collectors that vertebrate paleontology has ever known. His collecting activities occupy an almost fabulously large role in the history of science, ranging from the great brontosaur to tiny Mesozoic mammals....Dr. Granger was responsible for the most remarkable fossil discoveries of his generation. Most members of this Society have followed some trail that he has blazed and hardly need to be told how extensive and how excellent was his field work." The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, News Bulletin, November 10, 1941.