This is Throwback Thursday #297. In these, we look back into the past at ESCONI specifically and Earth Science in general. If you have any contributions, (science, pictures, stories, etc …), please send them to esconi.info@gmail.com. Thanks!   email:esconi.info@gmail.com.

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George Langford, Sr. (1876–1964) was a prolific collector of Mazon Creek fossils, assembling multiple significant collections over his lifetime. He sold or donated these collections to museums across the country, including the Illinois State Museum and the Denver Museum of Natural History. In 1947, he gifted the bulk of his material to the Field Museum of Natural History—then known as the Chicago Natural History Museum, where he went on to serve as Curator of Fossil Plants.

His grandson, George III, created a website that has quite a bit of information about both his grandfather and his father, George Langford Jr.  The image and page below, come from that informative and useful resource.

In 1939, their Christmas card included a photo of the “Fossil Gardens of Northern Illinois”.  The picture is a view of the strip mines about 1 mile south of Wilmington, IL, at a place that was not far from where Cinder Ridge Golf Course is today.   

George included this card in his first book with short descriptions of the fossils on each side.  The fossil on the left was identified as Sphenophyllum emarginatum (see Mazon Monday #256). It was originally named in 1829 by Adolphe-Theodore Brongniart, known as the Father of Paleobotany.  It’s a relative of modern day horsetails.  While the one on the right, was identified as Diplothmema zobelli, now known as Sphenopteris spinosa (see Mazon Monday #240).  Sphenopteris was part of the forest understory.  It was first described in 1841 by Heinrich Goppert.