University of Wyoming Geological Museum: S. H. Knight's Tyrannosaurus sculture stands near the museum entrance.
Courtesy Mark RyanNews has come out that the University of Wyoming will close its Geological Museum in Laramie, Wyoming as part of cost-cutting measures to offset an $18 million budget deficit.
This is terrible news, and hopefully not a trend for small-scale museums. The UW Geological Museum is not only a wonderful museum and repository of many important fossils, but its link to the early days of American paleontology gives it an historical significance not found at other museums.
William Harlow Reed: A portrait and plaque mark the pioneer paleontologist's work at the University of Wyoming Geological Museum.
Courtesy Mark RyanOne of the museum’s early curators was none other than William Harlow Reed who, as a worker for the Union Pacific Railroad, discovered nearby Como Bluff, one of the richest dinosaur graveyards in the world. The quarries at Como produced a number of well-known Late Jurassic dinosaurs during the late 19th century, and served and a battleground for the Bone Wars waged between pioneer paleontologists Othniel C. Marsh (for whom Reed worked) and Edward Drinker Cope. Reed later served as curator of the museum for a dozen years until his death in 1915.
The closing doesn’t make sense especially since UW president Tom Buchanan said the decisions were made “trying to minimize the impact on teaching, research and service at the university,”
Big Al, the Geological Museum's allosaurus: Museum director and paleontologist Brent Breithaupt led the excavation of Big Al from a northern Wyoming quarry. The BBC featured the Jurassic predator in an episode of its series "Walking with Dinosaurs".
Courtesy Mark RyanI’ve personally visited the museum on several occasions and have enjoyed it immensely each time. Museum director and paleontologist Brent Breithaupt will be one of two staff members whose jobs will be terminated by the closing.
Interested parties in the earth science community have set up an online petition to get the decision reversed. Hopefully, they’ll be successful.
LINKS
Laramie Boomerang story
Tags : 
Fossil Cabin Museum: Como Bluff is located just over the ridge seen in the background.
Courtesy Mark RyanOut on the High Plains of Wyoming about 50 miles northwest of Laramie you'll find one of the wackiest constructions in the world, a museum built entirely from fossilized dinosaur bones!
Known today as Fossil Cabin Museum, the structure sets smack dab on the border of Carbon and Albany counties near the nose-end of the Como Bluff anticline. It still operates as a museum, but access to it is spotty, depending on whether anyone’s around to let you in.
Fossil Cabin Museum wall: Fragments of 150 million year-old dinosaur bones make up the museum's exterior walls.
Courtesy Mark RyanThe oddity was built using 5,796 dinosaur bones fragments, more than 50 tons of them! At the time of construction traffic flowing past the site was heavy with motorists on their way east or west along Highway 30, the popular Lincoln Highway route.
Thomas Boylan, the guy who put together this strange museum, came to Wyoming from California, and established a homestead on the site in 1902. Boylan’s land was within walking distance of Como Bluff, an historic dinosaur graveyard from which 30 years before many of the first Jurassic-aged dinosaurs were dug up and introduced to the world. Boylan spent a lot of time hunting for dinosaur fossils and after 15 years had amassed quite a collection bone fragments. His dream was to construct an entire skeleton out of them.
“At first I planned to get enough of them together to mount a complete dinosaur skeleton, however erecting such a skeleton is a long and costly task for an individual to undertake so I abandoned the idea and proceeded to use them the best I could,” Boylan said.
Fossil Cabin postcard c. 1936
Courtesy Mark Ryan collectionCost and time weren’t the only reasons Boylan abandoned his dream. After consulting with paleontologists at the University of Wyoming Geological Museum he also learned that although he certainly had a boatload of dinosaur bones, they were from a large variety of species and didn’t amount to an entire skeleton of any one creature. Whatever the case, he and his son Edward (who for a time would serve as the museum’s curator) spent late 1932 and early 1933 constructing the building out of his collection.
Fossil Cabin postcard c. 1936
Courtesy Mark Ryan collectionNearby, they also built a residential home that - while not constructed out of dinosaur bones - was intentionally built to approximate the length of a Diplodocus in order to give visitors an idea of the size of one of the larger creatures extracted from the nearby dinosaur pits. Boylan also operated a service station alongside the roadside attraction, filling visitors’ cars with gasoline, as his museum filled their heads with science.
In 1938, Robert Ripley of “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” fame mentioned the museum in his syndicated newspaper feature calling it "The Oldest Cabin in the World". But the museum has gone by several other names including Fossil Museum, Dinosaurium, Creation Museum, and Dinosaur House. Boylan often referred to it as “The Building That Used to Walk”.
Fossil Cabin Museum entry
Courtesy Mark RyanThe Boylans operated the roadside exhibit throughout the 30s and 40s, playing host to tourists and the occasional paleontologist revisiting the historic fossil fields. After Tom died in 1947, his wife Grayce continued the operation until the new interstate was built through Laramie in the late 1960s and tourist traffic past the museum all but disappeared. Nearby towns like Bosler, Rock River and Medicine Bow faded as well. In 1974, Mrs. Boylan sold all the property to Paul and Jody Fultz, who tried to keep the attraction going, but the Fossil Cabin’s glory days had passed.
I’ve visited the area a few times and only once was anyone around to let me inside the museum. It looked closed, but I walked up to the nearby residence and knocked on a door framed by two large sauropod femurs. A young kid appeared, and was kind enough to allow me inside the museum for a $2 admission fee. As I “toured” the museum, he explained in a western drawl how he and his dad were living on the property, watching over it for the owner who had moved to Medicine Bow. They worked mainly as hunting guides for animals a little more current than what made up the museum’s exterior walls. 
Fossil Cabin Museum information sign: Brontosaurus was first named for a specimen discovered at Como Bluff.
Courtesy Mark RyanThe displays inside had seen better days, and I regret not taking photographs. A couple dusty glass cases held some large dinosaur bones, minerals, and marine fossils found around Como. A few faded and out-of-date science posters hung in tatters on the otherwise bare walls. Generally, it was a shambles. Which is too bad, because it could be a very nice little museum, and probably was in its time.
[1-9-10 UPDATE. I located these two photos taken inside the museum: photo 1, photo 2 ].
If anyone’s interested, the property is currently for sale. I know if I won the lottery it’d be the first thing I’d buy. With a little paint and wallpaper, and a pullout bed or futon, it’d make a nifty summer cabin for visits to Wyoming. Or a pleasant addition to the Dinos and Fossil gallery here at the Science Museum of Minnesota.
I should mention that this building is not the first of its kind. Bone Cabin Quarry, a rich dinosaur fossil site located along the Little Medicine river about 10 miles north of Como Bluff, was named after a sheepherder’s cabin built in the late 1800s. The cabin’s foundation had been created from the abundant dinosaur bones found in the region.
Further proof of something. Photo by Mark Ryan
Please contact us if you have questions about the rights on this image.
Subscribe
I want to learn about
Science Buzz is supported by the National Science Foundation.Copyright © Science Museum of Minnesota, 2004-2010, except where noted.
Add a new comment