Series V: Sternberg Files, 1883 - 1984

Dr. George Miller Sternberg was born in New York on June 8, 1838. He was the oldest son of Reverend Levi Sternberg and Margaret Sternberg. He became an Assistant Surgeon in the United States Army on May 28, 1861. He is considered one of the first U.S. bacteriologist. In 1866, he was promoted to Major and assigned to Fort Harker in Ellsworth County, Kansas. He became interested in fossils and started to collect fossilized leaves from the Dakota sandstone nearby. Many of his fossils are housed at the Smithsonian Institutuion in Washington, DC. He acquired land and opened a ranch near the fort. Later, his brothers Charles Hazelius and Edward, and his father, Levi, came to Kansas to live with him on his ranch. His younger brother, Charles H. Sternberg started to collect fossils as well.

Charles Hazelius Sternberg is the father of George Fryer, Charles Mortram, and Levi Sternberg. Charles H. Sternberg became a paleontologist and collected fossils with his sons. He wrote about his experiences in his memoir Life of a Fossil Hunter (1931). The fossil specimens he collected are displayed in museums throughout the world.

George Fryer Sternberg was born August 26, 1883, in Lawrence, Kansas. Following in his father’s footsteps, he became a paleontologist. He did field work in the Midwest, West, Canada, and South America. He gained recognition for discovering and classifying a new sub-family of mastodons. In 1927, he was hired by Fort Hays State University as field vertebrate paleontologist and as curator of the university museum. At the museum, he developed public and educational programs to get people, especially kids and educators, involved in paleontology. He is well known for his excavation of the “fish within a fish” fossil. He retired from Fort Hays State University in 1961 and died in 1969. Fort Hays State University’s student geology club and museum are named in honor of his family.