Abstract :
The quarry museum at Dinosaur National Monument, which straddles the border between the
American states of Colorado and Utah, is the classic geoconservation site where visitors can see
real dinosaur bones embedded in rock and protected from the weather by a concrete and glass
structure. The site was found by the Carnegie Museum in August 1909 and became a geotourist
site within days of its discovery. Within a decade, visitors from as far as New Zealand traveled
the rough, deeply rutted dirt roads to see dinosaur bones in the ground for themselves. Fearing
that the site would be taken over by others, the Carnegie Museum attempted twice to take the
legal possession of the land. The second attempt had consequences far beyond what the Museum
intended when the federal government declared the site as Dinosaur National Monument in 1915,
thus taking ultimate control from the Carnegie Museum. Historical records and other archival
data (correspondence, diaries, reports, newspapers, hand drawn maps, etc.) are used to show that
the unfolding of events was anything but smooth. It was marked by misunderstanding, conflicting
goals, impatience, covetousness, miscommunication, unrealistic expectation, intrigue, and some
paranoia, which came together in unexpected ways for both the Carnegie Museum and the federal
government.
