Charles Hazelius Sternberg

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Charles Hazelius Sternberg (1850 – 1943) was an American fossil collector and amateur paleontologist. His older brother, Dr. George M. Sternberg (1838-1915) was a military surgeon assigned to Fort Harker near Ellsworth, Kansas and brought the rest of Sternberg family to Kansas to live on his ranch about 1868. Once there, Charles became interested in collecting fossil leaves from the Dakota Sandstone Formation. In 1880, Charles married Anna Reynolds. Their three sons, George F. Sternberg (1883-1969), Charles Mortram Sternberg (1885-1981) and Levi Sternberg (1894-1976), also had careers in vertebrate paleontology. They are famous for their collecting abilities and many discoveries, including the "Trachodon mummy", an exquisitely preserved specimen of Edmontosaurus annectens (see hadrosaurid).

During the early years of the Bone Wars, Charles Sternberg collected fossils in Kansas for Edward Drinker Cope. He wrote two books: The Life of a Fossil Hunter (1909) and Hunting Dinosaurs in the Badlands of the Red Deer River, Alberta, Canada (1917).

[edit] Sternberg Museum

Fossils collected by Charles Sternberg, including dinosaurs from the western United States and Canada, are in museums around the world. Many of the fossils discovered by Charles Sternberg's son, George F. Sternberg, are on display in the Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Hays, Kansas.