NPS Douglass Collection, edited by Evan Hall Today's Quarry Exhibit Hall at Dinosaur National Monument houses what remains of the historic Carnegie Quarry, found in 1909 in Jensen, Utah. This Fossil Quarry was discovered and excavated under the direction of paleontologist, Earl Douglass, who worked for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was sent by the museum's directors to find and excavate dinosaur fossils specifically for display in the Carnegie Museum. Having worked in the Uintah Basin before, Douglass knew the area was home to dinosaur fossils. He spent many weeks finding broken fossils before stumbling upon the site that would become the Carnegie Quarry. After 15 years of excavations, Douglass proposed that the remains of the quarry be preserved as a site where "people can see the place where these ancient monsters have been entombed for ages." 
NPS Douglass Collection, edited by Evan Hall Finding the Carnegie QuarryThe TaskIn 1909, the directors of the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania decided they wanted more dinosaur fossils to display. The directors reached out to the museum's paleontologist, a man named Earl Douglass. They tasked Douglass with the job of finding dinosaur bones, excavating them, and shipping them back to the museum so that they could be displayed in the museum's new dinosaur hall. Thinking Like a Paleontologist While many fossil sites are found by chance, paleontologists often have to rely on more than just luck if they want to find something worthwhile. When deciding where to look, a good understanding of geology is critical. This was just as true for Earl Douglass back in 1909. Thankfully, many of the key principles of geology were already established by the early 1900s. Just like paleontologists today, Douglass needed to find an area with some very specific characteristics if he wanted to find a dinosaur worthy of display in the Carnegie Museum. Even in Douglass's time, dinosaur bones had only ever been found in rocks dating to the Mesozoic Era (about 252 to 66 million years ago). Since the museum wanted a big dinosaur, Douglass was hoping to find a sauropod (a long-necked long-tailed plant eater). The largest sauropods had only ever been found in rocks dating to the Jurassic and Cretacious periods. They also lived on land, so that ruled out any rock layers that had formed from ocean sediments or inland seas. The best-preserved fossils typically form from ancient groundwater bringing minerals into the bone. Armed with this information, Douglass had a pretty good hunch for where he could find the bones he was looking for. Thankfully, an area where he had worked before met this description exactly: northeastern Utah. Discovery Day: August 17, 1909 "At last, in the top of the ledge where the softer overlying beds form a divide, a kind of saddle, I saw eight of the tail bones of [an Apatosaurus] in exact position. It was a beautiful sight." — Earl Douglass
NPS Douglass Collection, edited by Evan Hall Visitors ArriveThe first visitors to the Carnegie Quarry arrived just five days after the "discovery bones" were found. Earl Douglass chronicled their arrival in his journal on August 22, 1909..."Today two loads of people came from Vernal to see the dinosaur and there were several loads from other places. For a time, the rocks... swarmed with people of all ages. Mothers and grandmothers ascended the steep, almost dangerous, slopes with babies and there were men and women well along in years." — Earl Douglass
The public's interest in dinosaurs was very apparent to Earl Douglass. Visitors continued coming to watch the excavations for many years, some even from as far away as New Zealand. Because of the obvious public interest, Douglass was deeply convinced that the Carnegie Quarry had amazing potential as a place for learning. In October 1915, President Woodrow Wilson established the Carnegie Quarry and 80 acres surrounding it as Dinosaur National Monument. 
NPS Douglass Collection, edited by Evan Hall Early Excavations (1909-1924)Excavations of the Carnegie Quarry for the purposes of the Carnegie Museum lasted from 1909 until 1922. During this time, Douglass and his team uncovered an incredible number of dinosaur fossils from the Late Jurassic period. They extracted over 300 tons of fossils from the Carnegie Quarry. Among the finds were 10 mostly-complete skeletons, an astounding 14 skulls, 2 new dinosaur species previously unknown to science, a new species of tiny Jurassic crocodilian, and one of the best specimens of sauropod dinosaur ever uncovered. However, following the death of the museum's founder and financial benefactor, Andrew Carnegie, the Carnegie Museum's directors pulled funding from the project. Earl Douglass, who had found the Carnegie Quarry and overseen excavations there for the past 15 years, didn't want to see any fossils left unstudied or broken apart and distributed as souvenirs. In an effort to protect the fossils and the scientific information inherit to them, Douglass invited the Smithsonian Institue and the University of Utah to excavate the remaining bones. By 1924, most of the visible fossils had been extracted.
NPS Douglass Collection, edited by Evan Hall A New Kind of ExhibitDouglass's DreamAfter 15 years of near-continuous activity, excavations at the Carnegie Quarry ended in 1924. Deep cuts had been dug into either side of the hillside where priceless fossils had been removed. However, there was still a huge slab of rock in the center that remained untouched, about 20 feet (6 meters) deep and 150 feet (45 meters) long. This slab was in the same rock formation as the sections the team had already excavated. Being a paleontologist, Earl Douglass knew that this slab of rock likely harbored many more bones from which the public could learn. In a letter to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, Dr. Charles Walcott, Douglass expressed his vision for a new kind of exhibit... "I hope that the Government, for the benefit of science and the people, will uncover a large area, leave the bones and skeletons in relief and house them. It would make one of the most astounding and instructive sights imaginable." — Earl Douglass
Convincing the Public According to Earl's son, Gawin, his father tried for years to convince the public and the government that this museum would be a worthwhile venture. However, he passed away in January 1931 before he could see his vision become reality. Three years after his passing, the Vernal Express newspaper published Douglass's "Vision of a National Museum." The document, written by Earl Douglass himself 15 years prior, was given to the Vernal Express by his wife, Pearl. In it, Douglass describes sites that have inspired him and expresses his feelings about the special place where he spent much of his career... "We have visited eleven of the national parks and monuments in our country and each has had its particular sites and pleasures. There is freedom and good fellowship everywhere, but Dinosaur National Monument is especially attractive to those who are intellectually inclined, and we have never been in any place where there were such intellectual treats, and where we have met so many people we can never forget." — Earl Douglass
NPS / Jake Holgerson It took time, but the National Park Service eventually brought Douglass's vision to life. In the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) deepened and widened the area in front of the quarry site with the intent of building a museum. In 1952, excavations on the rock wall finally resumed, and a tin shed was built on the eastern side of the wall to shield the workers and the fossils they were uncovering. In 1958, the Quarry Exhibit Hall was finished. This museum was built around the hillside to showcase the fossils in-situ as Earl Douglass had imagined. The goal was always to leave the fossils in place, not to remove them. For almost 35 years, generations of people could watch paleontologists and fossil preparators actively revealing fossils on the Wall of Bones within the Quarry Exhibit Hall. Once the National Park Service was satisfied that the bones were sufficiently revealed in place, work on the wall ended in the 1990s. However, care and maintenance of the wall still continues as needed. Today, Dinosaur National Monument remains a place of constant study and discovery, where visitors from all over the world come to learn about the distant past, just as Earl Douglass had hoped. Quarry Timeline1909 Douglass leaves for Utah to search for fossils after having been dispatched by his employer, William J. Holland of the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He arrives sometime in late July or early August. Upon arrival in Utah, he spends several weeks searching for dinosaur fossils. He finds some, but most of them are too broken to be worthy of display in the Carnegie Museum.
In the area where the Quarry Exhibit Hall is now, Douglass sees 8 vertebrae of a long-necked sauropod dinosaur eroding out of the rock. Initially, he identifies this dinosaur as a Brontosaurus, but it is later discovered to be the caudal (tail) vertebrae of an Apatosaurus. In his journal, Douglass writes:
Douglass and his assistant, a local resident named, George Goodrich, begin excavating the remains they found the previous day. In his journal, Douglass describes how anxious he is to discover how just how much of the dinosaur is preserved:
"Things look so good that to find a whole skeleton is almost unavoidable, but one is liable to be disappointed. But if it were whole, the rest of it!! My!!" (Douglass, 278) According to Dr. Kenneth Carpenter's article chronicling the early history of Dinosaur National Monument, Douglass knew that local people would likely be interested in seeing the specimen before he removed it, and so reached out to the local newspaper. The Vernal Express announced his discovery of the Apatosaurus vertebrae and encouraged locals to go see it...
"The remains of a Dinosaur, a prehistoric animal reptile, have just been unearthed by Earl Douglas [sic], of the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburg [sic]... Mr. Douglas will not begin to remove any part of it until next Sunday in order to give Vernal people a chance to see it and all those who avail themselves of the opportunity will witness the show of a lifetime." — Vernal Express Newspaper, Friday, August 20, 1909 Douglass chronicles the arrival of the first sightseers at the excavation site in his journal...
"Today two loads of people came from Vernal to see the dinosaur and there were several loads from other places. For a time the rocks... swarmed with people of all ages. Mothers and grandmothers ascended the steep, almost dangerous, slopes with babies and there were men and women well along in years." (Douglass, 279) Worried that someone else would lay claim to the land where he made his discovery and prohibit further excavations, Douglass files a mining claim under the General Mining Act of 1872. In the claim, he describes the fossils as "valuable mineral." This claim is officially filed at the General Land Office (precursor to the Bureau of Land Management) in Washington D.C. on October 21, 1909.
Andrew Carnegie, the wealthy steel tycoon who founded the Carnegie Museum, adds $5,000 to the museum's $10,000 paleontological fund.
1910 The Salt Lake Telegram announces that they recieved a press release from the Carnegie Museum, which noted the discovery of 3 fossilized sauropod dinosaurs by one of their exploring parties in Utah. The article also includes statements from a professor of geology at the University of Utah, Professor Fred J. Pack. He was informed of the discovery by his friend (also a member of the Carnegie exploring party) about 6 weeks prior. According to the article, Professor Pack claims that the location of these bones was already known to the university, along with the locations of several other fossil sites throughout the state. He says they had not been excavated due to a lack of funds. The state legislature had recently shot down a bill that would've appropriated funds to the university for excavation. Pack's disappointment is apparent in his quotes from the article:
"It's a downright shame that the university can't get hold of these specimens... These discoveries are not only important to Utah but the entire world, and I do not like to see the findings taken out of state. We should retain them here for a great museum someday." (Salt Lake Telegram) 1911 In 1911, no laws were in place yet that granted people mining claims specifically for extracting fossils. On this day, Douglass files a second claim for the quarry under the Timber and Stone Act of 1868. According to Dr. Kenneth Carpenter's article chronicling the early history of Dinosaur National Monument, the purpose of the Act was to find economical uses for natural resources, such as timber and stone, on lands deemed unfit for farming. However, while the Timber and Stone Act specified "building stone" (i.e. stone for building purposes), Douglass's claim specifically excludes the word "building" since that isn't what the fossils will be used for. Furthermore, placer law at the time only allowed claims of 20 acres per person. In order to reach the maximum of 160 acres, multiple people were were added to the claim. It included Douglass, his wife (Pearl Douglass), the director of the Carnegie Museum (William J. Holland), O.A. Petersen, and Arthur Coggeshall, among others.
According to Dr. Carpenter's article chronicling the early history of Dinosaur National Monument, Douglass was slow in filing the Carnegie Museum's second minding claim. This prompted prodding from his boss, Carnegie Museum director, William J. Holland. However, when Douglass tried to file the claim, the county surveyor, who was responsible for recording all claims, told Douglass that it could be rejected under the Antiquities Act.
1912 Upon learning of Douglass's encounter with the county surveyor, Holland writes to Douglass stating emphatically that the Antiquities Law should hold no sway over their mining claim.
"The land should be obtained in our name as a 'quarry claim' at once and I do not see what all this fuss is about. Find out where the nearest U.S. land office is and file the claim and complete the business transaction. Your friend, the County Surveyor, or whoever it was, is completely wrong." — Holland to Douglass, (Carpenter, p. 6) In the same letter, Holland informs Douglass that he has sent a letter to the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of the Smithsonian, Dr. Charles D. Walcott. Walcott had been the head of the U.S. Geological Survey when the Antiquities Act was passed. In those letters, Holland asked both of them to refute the surveyor's argument that the Antiquities Act provided grounds to reject their mining claim. Probably to Holland's surprise, he recieves a letter from Samuel Adams, the First Assistant Secretary of the Interior. In the letter, Adams informs Holland that the fossils cannot be excavated under any mining or timber and stone laws of the time. (Carpenter, p. 6)
A note about names: The 1912 Samuel Adams referenced here isn't the same person as the Samuel Adams who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. They're two different guys. In a letter to Douglass, Holland explains why he wants the Carnegie Museum to own the land upon which the Carnegie Quarry sits. He describes an experience he had in Nebraska, where a man named Harold Cook laid claim to a piece of land that the Carnegie Museum had been excavating Miocene bones from for several years. Although the museum had begun excavations in 1904 when the land had been in the public domain, once Cook obtained rights to it, he could legally control access to the excavation sites. (Carpenter, p. 7)
After informing Holland that fossils cannot be extracted under any mining or timber and stone laws of the time, First Assistant Secretary of the Interior, Samuel Adams, writes a letter allowing the Carnegie Museum to keep digging. In it, he cites the Antiquities Act as the law which would allow them to both apply and recieve a permit for fossil excavation. According to Dr. Kenneth Carpenter, "the Antiquities Act had a provision for obtaining permits for the excavation of non-renewable archeological and paleontological resources." However, Holland never told Douglass or his lawyer, Thomas O'Donnell, about the earlier letter from Adams, which stated that they couldn't excavate fossils under mining laws. Instead, Holland let Douglass proceed with the second mining claim. (Carpenter, p. 6)
1913 Earl Douglass posts notice of his mining claim to 80 acres (0.32 sq. km.) of land where the Carnegie Quarry is located. The notice appears in the local Vernal Express newspaper. According to local laws, the claim has to stay posted in the newspaper for at least 60 days to allow time for challenges to the claim. (Carpenter, p. 7)
The General Land Office which processed Douglass's mining claim recieves a new commissioner, named Clay Tallman. According to Dr. Kenneth Carpenter's account of the monument's early history, this new commissioner wasn't as lenient as the previous one. (p. 7)
In a letter to the Vernal Land Office, the new commissioner of the General Land Office, Clay Tallman, states that Douglass's claim doesn't meet legal requirments. According to Tallman, Douglass submitted his claim under mining laws that allowed for the excavation of minerals specifically for building. While he acknowledges that Douglass's claim was adapted for the excavation of fossils, he points out that the fossils are only abundant in the area currently being excavated. However, Douglass's mining claim included 80 acres surrounding the Carnegie Quarry.
According to Tallman, the law required Douglass to provide a more detailed description of the mineral deposits surrounding the quarry site and why they were also a valuable claim. He states, "The placer mining laws, in so far as they relate to deposits of stone, apply to lands valuable for materials used in building..." Tallman ends the letter by saying that Douglass's claim is insufficient under mining law. He says, "the entry [Douglass's mining claim] must be canceled, and the location declared null and void." (Carpenter, p. 7) After recieving a letter from the Vernal Land Office stating that he had only 30 days to shore up and resubmit his mining claim, Douglass immediately replies. He states that the goal of his initial claim was twofold. First, he wanted the Secretary of the Interior declare that fossils can be considered minerals: "Coal is fossil vegetable matter, but no one will dispute that coal is a mineral." He argues that fossilized prehistoric animal remains should also qualify as minerals, since their "animal substance" has been removed and replaced by mineral. His second goal for the mining claim as he had written it was to "conform to the language of the law." He goes on to claim that there is mineral material within the 80 acres around the quarry that could be used for building.
In the same letter, Douglass advocates for museums being able to gain legal control of their discovery sites. He hints toward the Cook incident, stating that museums in the past have made discoveries on public land that was later purchased by individuals under various laws. Those individuals could then control access to the land and demand that the museums pay them if they wished to continue study there. Douglass concludes with this statement... "Now the time has come, in the judgement of the Director of the Museum, when an attempt should be made to protect the rights of institutions which are willing to invest large sums for the advancement of science, either by obtaining such a ruling as I have suggested, or by securing supplementary legislation." — Earl Douglass letter to the Comissioner of the General Land Office (Carpenter, p. 7-8) 1915 In a letter to Earl Douglass, a new First Assistant Secretary of the Interior, Andrieus A. Jones, provides a final decision on the matter about whether Douglass's mining claim could be used to extract fossils under mining laws of the time. In the letter, Jones sides with the commissioner that the fossils in and around the Carnegie Quarry aren't considered "mineral" according to mining law. With this verdict, Douglass cannot legally excavate fossils with a mining permit. (Carpenter, p. 8)
Despite declaring that Douglass couldn't excavate fossils for the Carnegie Museum under current mining law, First Assistant Secretary Jones was still sympathetic to Douglass's efforts to protect the excavation site. The same day he wrote to Douglass, he also wrote to the Secretary of the Interior, Frank Lane, recommending that the be area be set aside as a national monument. Following this recommendation, Lane made a request to Frank Bond, Chief Clerk of the General Land Office. He suggested that Bond develop a Proclamation declaring the site a national monument, and prepare it for Presidential signature. (Carpenter, p. 9) A proclamation to turn the 80 acres around the Carnegie Quarry into a national monument was developed by Comissioner of the General Land Office, Clay Tallman. The proclamation was given to Secretary of the Interior, Frank Lane, to pass along to President Woodrow Wilson for signature. With the proclamation, Secretary Lane included a cover letter expressing his feelings about why protecting the site was so important...
"These tremendous fossil remains, probably of the Jurastrias period, exemplify some of the extraordinary forms of early reptilian life on the globe. They should not be lost to science by the haphazard and unauthorized excavations of speculators or vandals, nor should the best of them, I think, be scattered among institutions of learning the world over, until this Government has in its great museum [ the Smithsonian], a full representation of the principal and most extraordinary types." — Letter from Secretary Lane to President Wilson (Carpenter, p. 10) The Carnegie Quarry and the 80 acres surrounding it are established as the USA's 23rd National Monument in 1915, one year before the National Park Service itself is established. The monument was created by President Woodrow Wilson through Presidential proclamation, under the authority of the Antiquities Act, which had been passed by Congress in 1906. The Presidential Proclamation establishing Dinosaur National Monument identifies the reasoning for its preservation:
"... there is located an extraordinary deposit of Dinosaurian and other gigantic reptilian remains of the Juratrias period, which are of great scientific interest and value, and it appears that the public interest would be promoted by reserving these deposits as a National Monument, together with as much land as may be needed for the protection thereof." — Presidential Proclamation, 1915 In a letter to the director of the Carnegie Museum, William J. Holland, Earl Douglass states that public visitation to the quarry site is still ongoing. At this time, it was still extremely difficult, and often dangerous, for visitors to reach the quarry site by road. The road most often taken was the Brush Creek Road, which was unpaved and quite rugged for both horse-drawn buggies and early cars. Still, it didn't stop people from coming...
"Hundreds, if not thousands, of people from this and other states have visited the quarry. In one day last fall about sixteen autos were here when a delegation visited the basin from Salt Lake City." — Earl Douglass to Carnegie Museum Director, William J. Holland, (Carpenter, p. 4) 1916 The Salt Lake Tribune-Republican reports that Fred J. Pack, head of the geology department at the University of Utah, along with several other scientists, will ask the state legislature to "prevent or regulate the shipments of the skeletons of prehistoric animals out of Utah." The article highlights a recent event where a rock slide uncovered the skeleton of a large dinosaur at the Carnegie Quarry in Jensen. Earl Douglass immediately began extracting the bones for eventual display in the Carnegie Museum back in Pittsburgh. By this point, the article reports that 31 dinosaurs have been extracted, with 5 of them being complete enough to mount for display.
"'It is in the interest of the state to preserve some of these skeletons for its own institutions and not to permit all of them to be taken out of the state,' said Professor Pack last night. 'Consequently we have decided to ask the next session of the State legislature to take action to protect some of the skeletons for ourselves.'" (Salt Lake Tribune-Republican, p. 10) Despite Pack's arguments, the legislature will not ban the removal of fossils from Utah. It is also worth noting that the state of Utah was reaping the benefits of Andrew Carnegie's library-building program. At the time, 4 Carnegie Libraries existed in Utah, and 19 more would be built before the program ended in 1929. Grants through Carnegie's program paid for these 23 libraries, which cost over $250,000 at the time. (Carpenter, p. 5) 1919 Andrew Carnegie, the wealthy steel tycoon and philanthropist, and founder of the Carnegie Museum, passes away at 83 years old. He leaves money to the museum for future projects. Despite this, not long after his death, the museum pulls the funding from the Carnegie Quarry Excavations in Jensen, Utah. By this point, over 300 tons of fossils had already been removed from the site by Earl Douglass and his team. Almost all of them had gone to the Carnegie Museum.
Likely on this date in 1919, Douglass uncovered one what is arguably the most spectacular find of the Carnegie Quarry, the intact skeleton of a juvenile Camarasaurus lentus. This Camarasaurus specimen would become one of the most complete skeletons of a dinosaur ever found. Almost the entire 17-foot (5.1 meter) vertebral column is still intact, except for a few tail bones. The skull and limbs are preserved and generally in their correct positions. The articulation between the thigh bone and the pelvis showed conclusively that sauropods walked with their legs held upright beneath the body, not with the bowed-out limb posture of crawling lizards, as many scientists had supposed. The skull was complete even to the sclerotic ring — a complex of bony plates which surrounded the living eye and protected it. The entire rock slab containing the fossil was extracted and transported to be displayed in the Carnegie Museum in 1924. In preparation for display, fossil preparators revealed the left side of the animal's body, leaving the right side still embedded in rock. The legs were straightened and the position of the tail was slightly adjusted to better show the dinosaur's form. (See how the Camarasaurus specimen was adjusted using this photo slider).
A note regarding the date: The book, Speak to the Earth and it Will Teach You, includes many of Earl Douglass's journal entries. It was put together by Earl Douglass's only son, Gawin Earl Douglass. In a journal entry dated to December 17, 1919, Douglass describes finding a skull and jaw "perhaps articulated with neck" belonging to skeleton 333. Gawin attributes this journal entry to the famous juvenile Camarasaurus specimen. However, in the Memoirs of the Carnegie Museum, Volume 10, Charles W. Gilmore implies that the skeleton was found during "the final year of work," which was presumably 1922. See Sources for more information. 1920 to Present During the last year of the Carnegie Museum's excavations at Dinosaur National Monument, Arthur Sterry Coggeshall produces a silent film, titled, Monsters of the Past. Many scenes show the actual excavation process of the time, filmed at the Carnegie Quarry. However, the makers of Monsters of the Past also took many creative liberties. Interspersed with the excavation footage are clips taken from the 1918 silent film, The Ghost of Slumber Mountain, which features many scientific anachronisms. For example, scenes from The Ghost of Slumber Mountain show dinosaurs from the Late Cretaceous period, including Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus, which were never found at the Carnegie Quarry. The film also shows humans and Stegosaurus in the same scene, despite scientific consensus that they were separated by about 150 million years of time and didn't coexist.
As excavations at the Carnegie Quarry draw to a close, Earl Douglass writes a letter. It's addressed to Dr. Charles D. Walcott, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute:
"I hope that the Government, for the benefit of science and the people, will uncover a large area, leave the bones and skeletons in relief and house them. It would make one of the most astounding and instructive sights imaginable." (Douglass, 372) Following Andrew Carnegie's death in 1919, the Carnegie Museum pulled funding for further excavations of the Carnegie Quarry and extracted their last fossils. Remaining visible specimens unclaimed by the Carnegie Museum were extracted by the Smithsonian Institute and by the University of Utah. By 1924, all that remains is the slab of unexcavated sandstone that would someday become the Wall of Bones (visible today in the Quarry Exhibit Hall).
The Works Progress Administration (WPA) widens and deepens the area along the sandstone rock layer where the fossils lie at the Carnegie Quarry Excavation site in Jensen, Utah. A layer of clay about 10 feet (3 meters) thick is left in front of the remaining bone layers to protect them.
Quarrying is renewed by the National Park Service with the intent of exposing the bones in place, as Earl Douglass had wished. A tin shed was built to help shelter the bones and the workers.
The Quarry Exhibit Hall building is completed and opens to the public. It encloses the remaining "above ground" bone layer. Excavations on the bone wall by the National Park Service continue with the goal of revealing the bones in-situ on the natural rock face.
The National Park Service finishes preparing the bone wall inside the Quarry Exhibit Hall. Work on the wall continues on an as-needed basis to keep the bones in good condition.
The Quarry Exhibit Hall is condemned as a structure. The National Park Service undertakes steps to begin serious renovations so that the building can be repaired. The round visitor center on the front of the Quarry Exhibit Hall is removed, and a new Quarry Visitor Center is built on sturdier ground further down the road. The renovation process took 6 years.
Renovations of the Quarry Exhibit Hall are completed in 2011. Both the Quarry Exhibit Hall and the new Quarry Visitor Center, just a 3 minute drive away down the road, reopen. Both buildings are still available to see at Dinosaur National Monument. Please check the Operating Hours and Seasons for each building along with the park's Current Conditions when planning your visit.
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Last updated: April 30, 2024