When Dinosaurs Roamed Columbia County

As children, the Hillsdale Historians were thrilled to visit the 1964 New York World’s Fair. Like 50 million other visitors to the Fair (which ran from 1964-65) we marveled at the life-enhancing technologies corporate exhibitors assured us were just around the corner: the Bell Labs Picturephone, the Bell Aviation Rocketpack, and General Motors’ Futurama exhibit, with its vision of a 2064 cityscape.

The Unisphere and the New York State Pavilion are about all there is left of the 1964-1965 World’s Fair. Unless you know where to look.

The General Motors “Futurama” City of 2064

But one of our favorite exhibits harkened back to prehistoric times. Sinclair Oil Company’s “Dinoland Pavilion” displayed nine true-to-scale fiberglass dinosaur models. The pavilion featured erupting volcanoes, flashing lightning and bubbling streams depicting the earth at its birth 4.5 billion years ago, the appearance of marine life and formation of oil 600 million years ago, and the early dinosaurs 200 million years ago.

So imagine our surprise to learn from Hillsdale resident Bart Ziegler that a house on Mitchell Street was the long-time residence of sculptor Louis Paul Jonas, Jr. (Paul) who, with his father Louis Jonas, Sr., created the DinoLand dinosaurs! Paul’s sculpting skills were embedded in his DNA: the Jonas family’s roots in sculpture and taxidermy started in 1890s Budapest with these Jonas brothers: Coloman, John, Louis, Leslie and Guy.

Not to be confused with these Jonas Brothers…

Not these Jonas Brothers

Thanks again to Bart Ziegler, we connected with Paul’s daughter Robin Jonas, a film and TV producer in L.A., who regaled us with tales about growing up with her two sisters (Dr. Deb Jonas of Boston and Lisa Jonas-Fox of Amherst, a teacher specializing in working with children with mental disabilities) in and around the sculpture studio where the dinosaurs were created. The Jonas girls had a true “Jurassic Park” experience long before the 1993 movie and its many sequels.

It’s worth spending a little time on the family’s history before catching up with Paul in Hillsdale. Paul’s uncle, Coloman Jonas, was the eldest of 8 children born to a Hungarian mail carrier. Money was tight and in 1895, 16-year-old Coloman began a decade-long apprenticeship with a local taxidermist. For $5.00 a month he practiced the art of taxidermy, working on specimens brought in from around the globe. In Europe at the time, taxidermy was almost entirely subsidized by royalty and the wealthy aristocracy. Coloman taught himself German and English to work with this upper class clientele. 

As Coloman’s reputation grew, he was offered a job by the foremost taxidermist in the American West, Professor Gus Stainski in Colorado Springs. His father told him, “Go my son; our country is poor and future prospects are not good. You will have a better opportunity in America.”

Coloman found Professor Stainski’s methods to be inferior to his own and Stainski, who was egotistical and difficult to work with, was not receptive to Coloman’s progressive techniques. Coloman began saving money with the dream of opening up his own business.

The Jonas Brothers

Meanwhile, back in Budapest, Coloman’s younger brother John had also taken up taxidermy. Coloman sent him glowing letters describing the beauty of the Rockies and the unlimited opportunity for hunting. In 1906 John joined Stainski Studio as a junior taxidermist and by 1908, the two brothers had saved enough money to open Jonas Brothers Taxidermists in Denver.

In 1909 a third brother, Louis, joined the business. Only 14 years old, the youngest Jonas brother showed an exceptional talent for sculpture. Coloman was amazed at Louis’s “grasp of anatomy and fine feeling for form and motion in reproducing wild animals in clay and bronze.” Louis worked all day at the shop and then took English lessons at night.

Brothers Leslie and Guy arrived from Hungary soon thereafter. According to the National Taxidermy Hall of Fame (yes, it’s a real thing) “by the 1920s and 30s Jonas Brothers Taxidermy was recognized as the premiere commercial taxidermy studio in America, creating hunting trophies for sportsmen and dioramas for natural history exhibits and museums around the world.”

The Jonas method is described as follows in company literature:

Our methods are those now recognized by the leading museums of the world. Before starting to mount an animal, we make careful studies in the form of drawings and sketch models. A skeleton structure is built up and the animal is modeled in clay, reproducing the natural pose and the entire muscular system. A mold is made of the finished model and in this mold a paper mache manikin is created which is light, strong and durable.
Over this exact counterpart of the original model the skin is then placed.

Inside the Denver studio

While visiting New York in 1914, Louis met noted naturalist and “The Father of Modern Taxidermy” Carl E. Akeley, who created the famous African elephant exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History. Louis was offered an internship with Akeley and while training also studied sculpture at the National Academy School of Fine Arts. He became one of the regular staff of the Natural History Museum until his conscription in World War I. Assigned to the Camouflage Branch of the Army Corps of Engineers, Louis’s artistic talents were put to use designing netting and other special effects to hide troops, equipment, factories and artillery from aerial photography. The history of the Camouflage Branch of the Army Engineers, which marshaled the talents of sculptors, painters, architects, stage designers, sign painters, sheet metal workers, cabinetmakers, and other tradesmen in a “war of deception” against the enemy, is fascinating in its own right: you can read more about it here and here.

After the war Louis helped finish the African elephant exhibit at the Natural History Museum after Akeley’s untimely death while on safari in 1926.

Eventually, Louis opened his own studio in Mahopac, NY. He took the Jonas Brothers technique a step further by first sculpting miniature versions, precisely detailed, before going on to build full-size models. The Louis Paul Jonas Studio ultimately became as well known for its miniature animal sculptures, which can be found in museum dioramas worldwide, as for its full-size mounts. Among his celebrity clients was Ernest Hemingway: Jonas mounted all of his hunting trophies.

Louis’s son Paul was born in 1921 in Denver. Except for a three-year break for service in the Navy during World War II, Paul worked with his father starting at a young age.

#Dashing

 

Paul crafting miniatures, c. 1940s

Paul met his future wife Virginia “Ginny” Mitchell when she was a Fordham student and he worked at the Mount Vernon studio. Ginny’s family had lived in Hillsdale since the early 1800s — Mitchell Street is named for them — and Ginny introduced Paul and his parents to Columbia County. The Jonases promptly fell in love with the area and Louis bought a 120-acre farm on Miller Rd. in Churchtown, moving his studio there 1946.

Jonas Studio buildings (left) and home on Miller Rd., Churchtown.

Paul and Ginny married in 1949 and moved in the 1950s to 589 Mitchell St., just up the road from Virginia’s father, Earl Mitchell.

Paul and Virginia’s 1949 wedding reception was held at the Mount Washington House.

 

589 Mitchell Street

In 1962, Sinclair Oil Corporation made plans for an exhibit at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The company had featured a Brontosaurus logo since the 1930s, a reference to the then-popular theory that the world’s oil supply had been created by decaying dinosaurs buried beneath the earth’s surface during the Ice Age.

Sinclair commissioned the Jonas Studio to fabricate nine full-sized dinosaurs for its Dinoland Pavilion: Tyrannosaurus Rex, Triceratops, Struthiomimus, Trachodon, Ankylosaurus, Corythosaurus, Ornitholestes, Stegosaurus and — the largest — a  70-foot-long Brontosaurus. 

Jonas pere et fils consulted with renowned naturalists, paleontologists and other experts to make sure the Dinoland creations were as accurate as possible (given that they roamed the earth 100 million years ago and no human had ever seen them). Paul told the Associated Press, “We put a lot of effort into making sure they were anatomically accurate, true to life.”

Paul and Louis constructing a Triceratops model (date unknown)

The duck-billed Corythosaurus, ready to leave the studio.

Robin inspecting a model of a newly hatched dinosaur bound for Sinclair Oil’s Dinoland exhibit at the New York World’s Fair.

The life-sized sculptures, once completed, had to be moved outside the studio so the next model could be built. They were placed around the yard and on the surrounding property in Churchtown. Paul’s daughter Robin recalls the time a motorcyclist lost control of his bike after unexpectedly coming eye-to-eye with a very realistic Tyrannosaurus Rex (T. Rex and rider were uninjured).

A motorcyclist had an unfortunate encounter with this T. Rex on Miller Road in Churchtown

When all nine sculptures were complete, there remained one more logistical issue: how best to transport them to the fairgrounds in Queens. Louis and Paul deferred to the Sinclair PR department, which recognized a publicity stunt when they saw one. Instead of using flatbed trucks, someone in the PR department realized that shipping the creatures down the Hudson River on a barge would be a publicity gold mine. The fiberglass flotilla provided endless photo opportunities and created public excitement about the Fair and about the Sinclair Pavilion.

T. Rex sails under the Tappan Zee Bridge.

Before embarking on their Hudson River cruise, the sculptures were paraded down Warren St. in Hudson.  The city of Hudson, N.Y., declared a “Jonas Day” to honor and pay tribute to the Jonases.  There were speeches, eight bands, parading children, a key to the city presentation, and a banquet. And after the festivities, the dinosaurs were carted to a waiting barge 205 feet long, and the giants of 100 million years ago glided down the Hudson.

In the midst of a World’s Fair exuberantly focused on the future, the wildly anachronistic “Dinoland” would become one of the Fair’s star attractions. The official Visitor Guide described the exhibit this way:

“DINOSAURS IN MOTION. Nine Fiberglass dinosaurs are displayed, three of them moving figures, each set in the terrain and flora of its own geological period. Visitors follow a winding path through the garden to meet ostrichlike Struthiomimus, 6 feet long, then the ponderous Trachodon, 38 feet long and 16 feet high. Tyrannosaurus Rex, a meat eater, is shown attacking Triceratops, a plant eater. Nearby is the walking fortress, Ankylosaurus, and farther along the duck-billed Corythosaurus in its natural habitat, a lagoon. On the pavilion roof stands giant Brontosaurus, 27 feet tall and 70 feet long, its head swinging back and forth as it peers down at traffic on the Grand Central Parkway. On the path beyond the pavilion stands tiny Ornitholestes, and finally, Stegosaurus with a double row of fins and four long spikes on its tail.”

In the off-season, the dinosaurs had to endure the very conditions that originally wiped them out.

When the fair closed for good, Sinclair took the dinosaurs on tour around the country – this time on flatbed trucks. Eventually, most of them were distributed to museums and parks around the country – including right in Hillsdale’s backyard, so to speak. A Jonas-crafted replica of the original Stegosaurus – named Wally – stands on the grounds of the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield.

The Museum also has a permanent exhibit of dioramas designed by Louis depicting animals of the world in miniature.

Paul and Louis continued to make replicas of the original sculptures for museums and natural history institutions worldwide. For example, “Wally” has cousins in Cleveland and Atlanta. As the Jonas girls got older, they helped with finishing work such as painting dinosaur toenails. Paul even made a baby Triceratops as a prehistoric playmate for Robin.

Robin and friend

The dinosaurs stayed a subject of local fascination, as shown in this photo of a field trip by a Roe Jan school class to the Churchtown studio in 1966.

1966 visit to the Jonas Churchtown Studio by a Roe Jan elementary school class.

After Louis  Jonas Sr. died in 1971, Paul carried on the business for the next twelve years. The need for life-sized dinosaur models being somewhat limited, Paul had by then turned to his true calling, sculpting exquisite miniature animals.  He built a studio in the basement of his house on Mitchell St., and would work there nights after coming home from the Churchtown studio. There are now over 400 Jonas miniatures in museums and private collections all over the world.

An ad for an exhibit of Paul Jonas’s sculptures at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Paul died prematurely at 61 from cancer in 1983 and is buried in Hillsdale’s Rural Cemetery just off Route 22.

Carved on Paul Jonas’s headstone is a Giant Sable Antelope, the logo for the Jonas Studio.

The original Giant Sable Antelope statue was created in 1928 and has a sleek Art Deco design.

Paul and Ginny Jonas were well-traveled, yet always returned to Hillsdale. Robin remembers going to New York City and Boston with her parents to visit museums, and see concerts and plays. Robin recalls, “Growing up in Hillsdale was so special. There was a wonderful sense of inclusion. Weekenders and locals worked together, and people were very close.” Robin recalls that Paul and his Hillsdale buddies were fond of summer parties, which often led to a bit of car racing. In the 1950s and 1960s most of Hillsdale’s roads still hadn’t been paved, and “a posse, including Dad in his little Opel roadster and a local friend Sue Mills in her Saab could be seen racing on Mitchell Street, over Shun Pike, down the Toll Road over to Collins Street and up Herrington Road!”

Ginny Jonas was a notable figure in her own right. Born in Hillsdale in 1926, Ginny Mitchell Jonas was  one of the first woman executives to work on Wall Street after graduating from Fordham. After her marriage to Paul, Ginny became a freelance reporter for the Associated Press and for many years worked as a reporter/photographer covering local arts and events for the Hudson Register-Star.

In the 1980s, Ginny began writing a daily column called “Years Ago,” comparing current events and national issues with those of 25 and 50 years prior. Ginny was a good friend of famed illustrator Norman Rockwell and helped to organize his first exhibition in Japan. Angela Lansbury was also a close family friend.

Ginny in NYC in the 1940s and at work as a reporter

Paul’s sister, Zella, and Angela Lansbury, with a Jonas miniature

During the 1960s, Ginny was named Area President of “Experiment in International Living,” a student exchange program that brought high school students from all over the world to Hillsdale during the summer months, and sent local kids to live with foreign families.

Ginny and Paul founded the Community Activities League of Columbia County (CAL), which sponsored a wide array of arts and cultural events, as well as chess, bridge, and backgammon lessons. In the mid 1980s, Ginny served as the Secretary of the Columbia County Chamber of Commerce. In the early 1990s, she co-founded the Leaf Peeper concert series, which continues to this day.

After Paul’s death in 1983, Ginny became president of the Louis Paul Jonas studio and worked with museums and educational institutions around the world. She continued to live in the Mitchell Street house until her death in 2005, although in her latter years she wintered with Robin in Los Angeles. Robin and her sisters kept the house for a while but, being scattered all over the country, didn’t get to visit Hillsdale often, and sold it in 2021.

It’s fitting that ownership of the Churchtown Jonas Studio has passed to another sculptor, Dave Cole, whose work you can see here.

We are grateful to Robin Jonas for sharing her memories and photographs, and to Bart Ziegler for suggesting the idea for this post.

Sources:

Interview with Robin Jonas, January 15, 2023

http://taxidermyhalloffame.org/louis-paul-jonas/

https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/42253

https://www.worldsfairphotos.com/nywf64/sinclair.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Oil_Corporation

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/02/17/archives/louis-paul-jonas-i-animal-sculptor.html?searchResultPosition=1

https://www.newspapers.com/image/704839700/?terms=%22Louis%20Paul%20Jonas%22

https://www.newspapers.com/image/532353043/?terms=%22Louis%20Paul%20Jonas%22

https://www.newspapers.com/image/531669895/?terms=%22Louis%20Paul%20Jonas%22

https://www.newspapers.com/image/533072652/?terms=%22Louis%20Paul%20Jonas%22

https://www.newspapers.com/image/531749671/?terms=%22Louis%20Paul%20Jonas%22

 

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© 2023 Chris Atkins and Lauren Letellier