Vintage Dinosaur Art: Messmore and Damon

It's fun to imagine traveling back in time to visit ancient worlds, watch historical events unfold, contract now-defunct diseases. One of my top time travel destinations would be Chicago's Century of Progress exhibition.

The June 1933 issue of Popular Mechanics includes a story about one of the exhibits at the Century of Progress: an enormous diorama depicting life through the ages called "World a Million Years Ago." It was designed and built by Messmore and Damon, a design firm who specialized in animated mechanical displays. Popular Mechanics featured this impressive two page spread, which I roughly stitched together.



If you're interested in reading more about Messmore and Damon, make sure to visit this page at PopCult, which includes a company history and a very cool slideshow of some of their artwork, marketing materials, and design sketches. Modern Mechanix features a story from an old issue of Mechanix Illustrated, profiling Messmore.