Steggy the Stegosaurus

This life-sized paper mache model of the Jurassic armored dinosaur Stegosaurus was built for the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. In 1905 it was installed in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, where it was part of the dinosaur exhibits seen by millions of visitors for generations. In 2014, the Smithsonian permanently transferred it to the Museum of the Earth.

To get it out of the museum in Washington, the model had to be cut into three pieces. It was reassembled and restored as part of its installation in Ithaca.

The model depicts what paleontologists thought Stegosaurus looked like in the early twentieth century. More recent research, however, suggests that Stegosaurus had a more erect posture and more active lifestyle.