Mastodon
The Montpelier Examiner, Friday, July 14, 1911
UNEARTHED SKELETON OF A MASTODON
Find was Made Last Wednesday on the Farm of Chris Kunz, Five Miles West of Montpelier-Some of the Bones Exhibited Here
Last Wednesday while making a cut through a sand hill for a canal on the farm of Chris Kunz, five miles west of Montpelier, the point of the plow struck what the men at first supposed was a large piece of limestone, but to their great surprise, upon closer examination, they found the obstacle to be a portion of the skeleton of a huge animal.
The first bones unearthed proved to be the knee joint. Their curiosity being at once aroused to the highest pitch, work on the canal was abandoned and all efforts were directed at searching for further portions of the skeleton of what was evidently one day a mastodon.
A few minutes work with shovels brought to light various other pieces of bones and by night the men had unearthed bones enough to fill two wagon beds. Sam Kunz, who brought two pieces of the skeleton, the knee joint and a portion of the lower jaw to Montpelier with him yesterday morning and the search was being continued and that the men would doubtless be able to accrue practically the entire skeleton. The knee joint measured 15 inches across, while the portion of the jaw gave further evidence that the skeleton was that of a beast much larger than the largest elephant of the present day.
Mr. Kunz stated that the first bones were unearthed just 17 feet beneath the surface. A great crowd gathered around Mr. Kunz's buggy as soon as it was learned that he had in his possession bones of a mammoth prehistoric animal and all manner of questions were fired at him with gatling gun rapidity.
What disposition will be made of the skeleton, Sam Kunz was unable to say when talking with the Examiner representative yesterday afternoon. When all the existing skeleton is unearthed, Mr. Kunz said they would place the bones together as near as correct as possible and take a photograph of them. They will also be kept well under cover to prevent disintegration by the air and sunlight.
The find is an important one and should be reported to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington or some other scientific institute in the country, that a representative might be sent here who would be able to give correct information regarding the "nature of the brute", in what age it lived and some theory as how the skeleton happened to be deposited in this section.
Skeletons of mastodons, if such the was have
been found in the temperate parts of both hemispheres.
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Montpelier Examiner, July 21, 1911
While nothing like a complete skeleton has been
obtained of the huge beast which was discovered last week on the ranch of Chris
Kunz in Bern, enough has been found to determine that the skeleton is that of a
mammoth, a species of the elephant family. The teeth, one of which weighs
four pounds, resembles perfectly the illustrations of the teeth of a mammoth as
shown in encyclopedias and LaConte's geology.
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Montpelier Examiner, October 27, 1911
Last Monday Chris Kunz of Bern, shipped six more boxes of bones of the Mastodon, which were recently unearthed on the ranch, to the Deseret Museum in Salt Lake, making 16 boxes all told. Mr. Kunz stated that they found a portion of the animals skull and other bones at considerable distance from where the first bones were uncovered.