A Fossil, a Father, and a Little Piece of Texas History

There are some places that don’t just hold history. They hold your history.

A couple minths ago, I visited the Whiteside Museum of Natural History in Seymour, my hometown, and I walked in thinking it would be a simple visit. It wasn’t. It turned into something personal.

Inside the museum is a Dimetrodon named Carlos, after my dad, Carl. Carlos has always been the name people called him growing up, so seeing it there on a museum display case made me stop for a minute and take it in. This wasn’t just a fossil. This was a piece of our story.

The specimen includes part of the spinal column, pelvis, and shoulder blades. It had been resting in the Texas red earth for nearly 300 million years before my dad helped uncover it. Think about that for a second. Three hundred million years. And somehow our family name is tied to it now.

That kind of thing stays with you.

A Family Rooted in Texas Soil

Our family has lived on this land and worked it since the 1800s.

Generations before me planted crops here, raised cattle here, built homes here, and raised families here. The same ground that held that fossil held our footsteps too. There’s something steady about that. Something grounding.

So standing inside a museum in Seymour and seeing my dad’s discovery preserved there didn’t feel random. It felt like another thread added to a long Texas story our family has been part of for a long time.

More Than a Fossil

My dad didn’t just help discover the Dimetrodon named Carlos.

He also serves on the Board of Directors for the museum and designed the Bakker Wing of the building. That means part of the structure itself carries his work and vision. Not many people get to leave that kind of mark on their hometown.

Baylor County is known around the world for its Permian Red Beds fossils. Scientists travel here because what’s under our soil matters. And it means something to me knowing my dad helped contribute to telling that story.

Why Places Like This Matter

Sometimes we think history lives somewhere else.

In big cities. In textbooks. In places far away from where we grew up.

But the truth is, history is often right under our boots. Sometimes it’s in the fields your family worked. Sometimes it’s in the stories your grandparents told. And sometimes it’s in a museum just down the road with your father’s nickname on a fossil display.

If you ever find yourself near Seymour, the Whiteside Museum of Natural History is worth the stop:

https://www.wmnh.org/

For me, it wasn’t just a museum visit.

It was family. It was roots. It was home.