This is a beautiful country. One of the things that make it beautiful is reminiscing on the American Dream and what it means. A prime example is Andrew Carnegie. Cliff notes: Carnegie was born in 1835 in Scotland, came to America poor, got involved with the steel industry and became the richest man in the world at the time. Eventually, he used his wealth to fund many humanitarian projects, including the Carnegie Museums in Pittsburgh. It was said that he told the museum to find the biggest dinosaur they could find and a man named Earl Douglass headed west to do it. In 1909, he found eight dinosaur tailbones under a sandstone hill in the Utah desert and started the Carnegie Quarry, which eventually became Dinosaur National Monument. Douglass excavated the most complete Apatosaurus ever discovered. It was extracted, shipped, and mounted in the Dinosaur Hall at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in 1915 and is still is on display at that museum, which is one of the four Carnegie museums in Pittsburgh.
The Apatosaurus was not the only dinosaur in the area, though. In the span of 15 years, over 700,000 tons of material was transported to the Pittsburgh museum and sent to museums all over the country. Transporting the extremely heavy bones was an ordeal by itself. The bones were put into wooden crates and taken down the mountain using two or three teams of mules and horses, ferried over a river, and taken over roads for 60 miles to the Uintah Railway. The Uintah Railway took the bones to standard gauge railways and made their way to Pittsburgh.
"This is a very diverse park with canyons, rivers, diversity of wildlife, human history, and, of course, the quarry," says Dan Johnson, Chief of Interpretations at the Monument says. The jewel of the monument is a building that is built over the cliff that has 1,500 dinosaur fossils in their original position for people to see. It is an extraordinary site and one that many find inspiring. One user says, "Such an amazing and unique place. When you see it you'll have a cathartic moment and realize for the first time that dinosaurs are really real! Great place to take kids to see the real bones fossilized in what is now an enclosed hillside (ancient river bed tilted upward over the eons). Surrounded by beautiful scenery similar to other Utah national parks."
NPS sponsored sign for Dinosaur National Monument park in Jensen, Utah. [NPS Photo]
So how did all these dinosaurs end up in this area of the country? Paleontologists say that about 150 million years ago a severe drought happened. The dinosaurus gathered in this area of Utah (not called that back then) and eventually died of thirst or disease. When it started to rain again, a few floods washed the dinosaur carcasses to the same area and that area eventually became the quarry.
Douglass and the director of the Carnegie Museum, William Holland, continued to excavate for many years, but early on realized the necessity of getting it preserved as a national monument. Holland got Woodrow Wilson to preserve the site and Douglass came up with the idea of containing the remaining fossils in an on-site museum, which happened in 1958. Not only are the fossils available to see at the quarry, there are also some available to touch - ones that are 149 million years old!
What other interesting history is in the area? As most places in the southwest, the area was home to a Native group of people called the Fremont People. Archaeologists say that the Fremont people's lifestyle varied depending on the environment. According to the Dinosaur National Monument website, "they lived in small bands or family groups, grew crops to supplement native foods and did not build large permanent dwellings." There are some dwelling places and a few pictographs and petroglyphs in the monument, including the famous lizards.
The dinosaur history of the area makes up the original 80 acres of the monument. Now, there are 210,844 acres in the Monument. The rest of the monument has canyons and rivers, whitewater rapids, and beautiful desert backcountry. There are rivers to fish in, trails to hike and bike on, as well as roads that are fun to drive on if one has a high-profile vehicle. In any activity, it is recommended to bring a bunch of water with because it is high desert and water sources are unreliable throughout the expansive park.
There are 6 campgrounds in the park. “The three campgrounds on the Colorado side are primitive camping and the other three have water and toilets seasonally,” Johnson says. There are no hookups at the campgrounds, but most folks don’t have a problem with that, due to the uniqueness of the park. One reviewer says of the Green River Campground, “We had a great time. Camp hosts were awesome. We will be back again. The restrooms were clean and close, there is water and drinking fountains, firewood to purchase, and the river is close to walk to. The scenery sunset and sunrise was absolutely breathtaking.”
As mentioned, the campgrounds are open year round, but Johnson recommends checking the weather before coming out in the winter. “One year I was here, it didn’t get above 0 degrees from December 1st to February 1st,” Johnson recalls, “And other winters, like last year, are mild and we get folks just about every weekend.” It is a place to enjoy the great American desert, as well as reflect on the expansive American dream that makes so much possible.
Culture, Destinations, History, Museum, National Parks, Utah