Thousands of fossils, roughly 100 participants, and a free all-ages celebration of ancient life are set to take over the lower level of the Saint Louis Science Center on October 17, as organizers debut the inaugural St. Louis Prehistoric Life Show. The event spans six spaces inside the museum, with no admission fee and no advance ticket required, drawing fossil hunters, scientists, artists, collectors, museums, and universities from Missouri, the Midwest, and beyond.
The show was co-founded by Jon Porter, Kristen Tippit, and Asa Kaplan. Donations go through Paleoheritage, according to St. Louis Magazine. Organizers are projecting attendance of 2,500 or more people for the first-time gathering, per Paleoheritage. The gathering brings together people fascinated by fossils, fossil collecting, or dinosaurs.
What Families Can Do at the Show
Families attending can crack open rocks in search of real fossils, sift through gravel for prehistoric finds, make jewelry with fossilized crinoids, and bring mystery rocks to experts for identification, the magazine reports. A dedicated dig site will offer fossil-filled gravel sorting and layered-rock splitting alongside the chance to string real crinoid fossils into bracelets, and visitors can take home whatever fossils they uncover while digging — though fossil cracking and gravel sorting will only be available while supplies last.
Visitors with their own puzzling finds can head to the Fossil Road Show in May Hall, where experts will help determine what a specimen is, its possible age, its source creature, and its former environment. Mizzou's geology team will staff tables in that same room.
Private Collections on Display
Inside the T. Rex Room, museum-quality private collections will go on public display, featuring Pennsylvanian-era sea life and fluorescent minerals. At the show, the Sutton collection of St. Louis-area fossils and the McConkey Fluorescent Mineral Collection will also be on public display.
The Dino Den will host a paleoart gallery featuring more than two dozen artists from Missouri, across the United States, and Europe, some of whom will demonstrate their work live.
Mylo's Trading Post
The trading post, now called Mylo's Trading Post, is located on Galena Court and offers books, handmade crafts, and pre-loved dinosaur toys, according to a Facebook video.
Mastodon State Historic Site, located south of the city in Imperial, preserves the Kimmswick Bone Bed, where archaeologists found evidence that prehistoric humans and mastodons coexisted, according to Missouri State Parks.
A Shoestring Budget Inside a Tax-Funded Institution
The show itself is entirely volunteer-run and costs about $5,000 to produce, according to the event website, with Paleoheritage donations helping to pay for activities, supplies, volunteer food, and other expenses. That modest, grassroots budget stands in contrast to its host venue: the Saint Louis Science Center reached 686,956 total people across its programs in 2025, including 674,288 onsite visitors, operating primarily under tax disbursements from the Metropolitan Zoological Park and Museum District that fund free general admission. The Science Center also expanded its public schedule from five to six days a week in 2026, reopening on Wednesdays starting June 3 due to steady post-pandemic attendance growth.
The museum's host role comes about seven weeks after Hoodline reported that Becky Thompson, the Science Center's vice president of science and education, died after a 17-hour Catalina Channel swim, following her work directing an 18-month renovation of the museum's James S. McDonnell Planetarium.
Fossils and Future Hunters
The show brings prehistoric life into hands-on activities, including making jewelry with crinoid fossils.
Organizers hope the new show will help inspire another generation of fossil hunters.
