Mastodon move attracts crowd at Wheaton College

It was a parade 13,500 years in the making.

Hundreds of spectators came out Thursday afternoon to watch crews successfully move Perry, Wheaton College's restored mastodon skeleton, from Armerding Hall to its new home inside the soon-to-be-completed Science Center.

"It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience," Bruce Koenigsberg, the college's architect, said of the 16-foot-long, 9-foot-tall mastodon's cross-campus journey.

The creature's 13,500-year-old fossil remains were unearthed in 1963 in Glen Ellyn. Nearly half of them were incorporated into the mastodon reconstruction, which has a skeleton on the left and a Fiberglas body on the right.

Koenigsberg said Thursday was the first time Perry has been outdoors since being assembled inside a room at Armerding Hall in the early 1970s.

"Perry is a significant figure at Wheaton College," said Linzi Hansen, a graduate student who was snapping pictures of a large forklift carrying the mastodon to a flatbed truck. "It's a big moment that he's actually getting moved. I didn't realize it was going to be quite a parade,"

Indeed, once Perry was secure on the truck, the move became a parade complete with motorcycle riders, a classic car, cheerleaders, a bagpiper and two young women dressed as Betty and Wilma from "The Flintstones."

Children in the large crowd were given orange balloons with the image of a blue mastodon and the words "Perry Rocks" on the side.

Farrah Brown, a 1999 graduate of the college, brought her two young sons to watch the celebration.

"They are way into dinosaurs and things of that nature," the Glendale Heights resident said. "My older one is excited to see a mastodon moving down the street."

Despite the festive atmosphere, Wheaton College geology professor Jeff Greenberg admits he was a little nervous during the move. After all, he said, Perry is a unique specimen.

"It tells us a lot about the former geological environment of this area," he said.

The first large bone was found in October 1963 on the Glen Ellyn property of U.S. Federal District Court Judge Joseph Sam Perry. The judge gave Wheaton's geology department permission to excavate the site and then donated the 115 bones that were found to the college. Originally thought to be roughly 10,500 years old, the bones recently have been found to be 3,000 years older.

When the new Perry exhibit opens Sept. 1, bones that weren't used in the mastodon reconstruction - including the real tusks - will be displayed.

Dorothy Chappell, dean of natural and social sciences, said the hope is that more visitors will come to see Perry in the new space.

"It's a very valuable, valuable specimen," Chappell said. "It's well known all over the world. So we wanted to give it the best space possible."

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<li><a href="/story/?id=384075">Images of Moving the Mastodon at Wheaton College </a></li>

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