February 20, 2025
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Replica of Tyrannosaurus rex skull creating eye-opening experience

Will be at Montgomery campus of Oswego Library through July 27

By Eric Schelkopf
Nolan Peter, 9, of Oswego, on July 16 stands next to Norm, the life-sized reproduction of a Tyrannosaurus rex skull. The skull will be on display at the Oswego Public Library's Montgomery campus, 1111 Reading Drive, Montgomery, through July 27.

Nolan Peter, 9, of Oswego, on July 16 stands next to Norm, the life-sized reproduction of a Tyrannosaurus rex skull. The skull will be on display at the Oswego Public Library's Montgomery campus, 1111 Reading Drive, Montgomery, through July 27. (Eric Schelkopf)

Oswego East High School student Addison Peter certainly got an eyeful when she walked into the Montgomery campus of the Oswego Public Library on Sunday.

She came face-to-face with Norm, the life-sized reproduction of a Tyrannosaurus rex skull.

Norm, the life-sized reproduction of a Tyrannosaurus rex skull, will be on display at the Montgomery campus, 1111 Reading Drive, Montgomery, through July 27. In addition, other fossils and replicas will be on display at the Oswego campus, 32 W. Jefferson St. in downtown Oswego.

Norm, the life-sized reproduction of a Tyrannosaurus rex skull, will be on display at the Montgomery campus, 1111 Reading Drive, Montgomery, through July 27. In addition, other fossils and replicas will be on display at the Oswego campus, 32 W. Jefferson St. in downtown Oswego. (Eric Schelkopf)

“I think it’s really cool,” said Peter, who will be a junior at Oswego East this fall. “I just really like history.”

Her 9-year-old brother, Nolan, also was excited about seeing Norm. Out of curiosity, he reached out and touched the skull to see what it felt like.

“It feels hard like a rock but it’s also nice and bumpy and sometimes smooth,” he said. “It just feels really weird and nice.”

The skull will be on display at the Montgomery campus, 1111 Reading Drive, Montgomery, through July 27. In addition, other fossils and replicas will be on display at the Oswego campus, 32 W. Jefferson St. in downtown Oswego.

“I just really like history.”

—  Oswego East High School student Addison Peter
Kevin Egan, the Oswego Library District’s assistant department head of youth services, sorts through dinosaur fossils and other fossils that will be on display at the Oswego campus, 32 W. Jefferson St. in downtown Oswego.

Kevin Egan, the Oswego Library District’s assistant department head of youth services, sorts through dinosaur fossils and other fossils that will be on display at the Oswego campus, 32 W. Jefferson St. in downtown Oswego. (Eric Schelkopf)

The skull is on loan from the Field Museum in Chicago as part of its N.W. Harris Learning Collection.

Dinosaur fossils and other fossils will be on display at the Oswego campus, 32 W. Jefferson St. in downtown Oswego.

Dinosaur fossils and other fossils will be on display at the Oswego campus, 32 W. Jefferson St. in downtown Oswego. (Eric Schelkopf)

“They have all sorts of hands on exhibits that can be checked out for educational purposes,” said Kevin Egan, the library district’s assistant department head of youth services. “The T.rex skull happens to be the largest of them. It weighs a little bit over 200 pounds.”

Tyrannosaurus is Greek for tyrant lizard and rex means “king” in Latin. T. Rex lived about 66 to 68 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period in the western United States, including Montana and Wyoming.

People will not only get to see the skull, they can touch it as well.

“They can very gently touch it,” Egan said. “They are welcome to give it a pat on the snout.”

Those who visit the exhibit can also learn some facts about it, including that Norm was about 18 years old when it became a fossil and that Norm would have been 38 feet long and would have weighed more than 10 tons.

For those who want to learn more about dinosaurs, the two libraries have plenty of reference material. The Oswego Library this summer also hosted a visit from Mr. Freeze of Fermilab in Batavia, who gave a cryogenic demonstration as well as a ballet troupe from Oswego that put on a performance.

More information is available by going to the library district’s website at oswego.lib.il.us.