Elias Howard Sellards (1875-1961).  Born in Carter City,  Kentucky, on May 2, 1875, the son of Wiley W. and Sarah (Menach) Sellards. The family moved to Kansas during his youth.  He attended the University of Kansas, where he received his B.A. and M.A. degrees, and Yale University, from which he graduated in 1903 with a doctoral degree in paleontology. During his years as a graduate student in Kansas he discovered the Elmo fossil site, among the richest finds of its kind.

Photo courtesy of the Texas Memorial Museum.

From Dunbar (1924):

"Sellards' discovery [of the Kansas Elmo insect fossils] came by accident.  In working over a plant collection secured the previous summer, he came unexpectedly upon two insect wings.  Realizing the importance of this lead, he returned to Elmo in the summer of 1902 especially to follow it up, and was rewarded by finding a thin layer of argillaceous limestone so rich in insects that during this and the succeeding summer he secured some 2,000 specimens, a number which exceeded the combined fruits of nearly a hundred years' collecting from all other American Paleozoic localities!

...Following a preliminary announcement of the discovery in 1903, Sellards briefly described the fauna under the title 'Types of Permian Insects'..."

Left:  A photocopy of the cover of a paper by  paleontologist Charles H. Beecher that was in Sellards' library files at the Texas Memorial Museum, and that contains Sellards' signature.  Provided to Roy Beckemeyer by C.J. Durden during a visit to the TMM in July, 2001.

From Carpenter (1930):

"The first insects were found in this deposit in 1899.  During the winter of that year Dr. E.H. Sellards found two fossil wings in a collection of plants which he had obtained in the Wellington shales, just south of the town of Elmo, Kansas.  Realizing the significance of his discovery he returned to the locality during the summers of 1902 and 1903, and after some difficulty in locating the proper layer, secured about 2000 specimens.  At that time the taxonomy of fossil insects was in a deplorable condition.   Handlirsch's work, which for the first time placed the classification of the extinct forms on a solid foundation, had not yet appeared, and the literature on the subject was extremely fragmentary and scattered.  But between 1906 and 1909 Dr. Sellards published three papers on his collection, describing a few of the forms which seemed to be typical of the fauna.  It was his intention at that itme to publish a revision of the fossils, but other matters intervened and for many years this huge collection was stored in his home at Austin, Texas.  In the spring of 1927 when I was enabled by a grant from the National Academy of Sciences to make an extended visit at Austin, Dr. Sellards kindly placed his types at my disposal for examination, and the following year he sent me his entire unworked collection for study..."

Many of the specimens were eventually returned to the Texas Memorial Museum (in 1947), and discovered there by Dr. Chris Durden in 1970 (Durden, 1979 - see Bibliography).  The picture at right is a photocopy of a mailing label used by Carpenter to return the specimens and some of the Abilene, Kansas newspaper (Abilene is in Dickinson County, near the Elmo site) that was used to wrap the specimens.  Photocopy courtesy of Dr. C.J. Durden, Texas Memorial Museum.

SEE THE "HANDBOOK OF TEXAS ONLINE" ARTICLE ON E.H. SELLARDS FOR MORE INFORMATION.

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