Dino Bone Museums Create Local Stars, Drive Tourism To Some Western Towns
Struggling remote communities can benefit by keeping prehistoric bones in area where they are found, Adam Larson says in this piece from Writers on the Range
Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, once led by Dr. Jack Horner, is a world-class laboratory for studying dinosaurs and its display of paleontological wonders, including T. Rex and Allosaurus skeletons, attracts large crowds. There are other dino museums on the highest Western plains in the US and Canada. Photo courtesy Museum of the Rockies
EDITOR'S NOTE: In this latest Writers on the Range essay, Adam Larson discusses the history of people coming West and digging up dinosaur bones in windswept badland areas of Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas. Today, there is a growing movement, he says, to keep excavated bones in the region and have them displayed in local museums where they can attract visitors, educate the public and generate tourist dollars for the local economy. It's a better alternative to having the bones end up in distant big city museums or private collections. Larson makes an excellent point. We at Mountain Journal would add one note of caution, especially in the age of social media when sharing posts of "new discoveries" can result in large numbers of people showing up in places and disturbing sites that are unmanaged or unguarded. Whenever unscrupulous amateurs get involved in hunting for artifacts, petrified wood or natural foods (think edible mushrooms) that can be sold for huge profit, trouble has often ensued. We are now dealing with the negative impacts of people pilfering ancient indigenous cultural sites in order to sell pots, stone points and burial objects on the black or open market. With mushrooms, the industrialization of the once quaint pastime of searching for morels and other fungi has created conflict in some national forests over the years. In the world of dinosaur bone hunters, which dates to the late 19th century in the West, the legacy of amateurs destroying important paleontological sites or battling over possession is well known. Read Larson's provocative piece and let us know what you think by sending along a comment. We may print it at the end of Larson's piece. Whatever you write, keep it short, civil and on point. —Mountain Journal
by Adam Larson
The prehistoric past can perk up the present. When woolly mammoth bones were found in my hometown in Wisconsin years ago, they became the centerpiece of one of our local museums. Today, they continue to attract visitors and serve as one of the city’s informal symbols.
Unfortunately, the story across much of the fossil-rich West is more abandonment than local fame. During the late 19th century, paleontologists made huge finds in the region, excavating specimens of famed dinosaurs like Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Diplodocus and Allosaurus.
But like many would-be movie stars, the bones ended up leaving their rural sites to find fame in the big cities. Left behind were holes—literally, in the case of the dinos.
It took time for the West to stake its claim to keeping some fossil finds at home. Countless fossils, for example, have been exhumed in Wyoming since the late 19th century, but the University of Wyoming Geological Museum in Laramie didn’t have a single mount of a Wyoming dinosaur until 1961.
One reason was money. Even today, a town might be located right next to spectacular fossil sites, but limited municipal budgets can make it hard to keep the lights on in a museum. Funding for the collection, curation and study of fossils doesn’t always match up with areas containing many fossils.
Yet everyone benefits when at least some fossil finds stay put. In many cases, they are discovered not by paleontologists but by ordinary citizens. In 2006, oil workers in Wyoming happened upon giant white bones, recognized their importance, and called in experts. The bones were part of an enormous, 11,600-year-old Columbian mammoth.
Thankfully, that mammoth is now on public display at the Tate Geological Museum in Casper, Wyoming. The landowners whose property contained the mammoth bones thoughtfully chose to donate them.
Once in local museums, fossil displays give people in the area examples of the bones they might come across, and a place for them to contact if they find something unusual. When locally found fossils stay local, they also connect people to their prehistoric heritage and encourage them to donate discoveries to local museums.
But there’s more: fossils help the local economy by attracting visitors. Once local museums start drawing a crowd, they can help pay for themselves while also indirectly contributing to schools and roads. According to the national group Americans for the Arts, tourism from museums and other cultural nonprofits generates five dollars in tax revenue for each dollar they receive in government funding.
A skeleton of Allosaurus jimmadseni as it looked when uncovered in the West. Photo courtesy National Park Service
Thankfully, a lot has changed since the first fossil hunters descended upon the West in search of prehistoric dinosaurs, mammals and more. Fossil fans in the West no longer have to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to see incredible discoveries made in their home states.
For example, in Ekalaka, Montana, population 399, the Carter County Museum hosts an annual “Dino Shindig,” which attracts paleontologists from across the country and hundreds of other visitors.
As Carter County Museum director Sabre Moore told the documentary series Prehistoric Road Trip, the Shindig shares groundbreaking science and includes the landowners who made the discoveries possible.
At the Wyoming Dinosaur Center in Thermopolis, population 2,725, visitors can see fossils of dinosaurs large and small, tour active dig sites and even take part in the digs themselves.
“I like that we’re a destination for folks coming to Thermopolis,” said Levi Shinkle, collections manager at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center and a Thermopolis native. “We’re a small museum,” he added, “but we’re often in the same conversations as the large museums in urban centers.”
In North Dakota, the North Dakota State Fossil Collection is on a quest, in the words of founder John Hoganson, to put “a fossil exhibit in every town.” The program has helped put up more than two dozen paleontology and geology exhibits across the state, from Pembina, population 512, to Lidgerwood, population 600, to Bowman, population 1,470.
Sharing a home where the dinosaurs once roamed definitely adds to local pride. When the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana, obtained a second large Tyrannosaurus rex, they put the second one up on display in the museum as “Montana’s T. rex,” and they loaned the other to the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, where it’s now known as the “Nation’s T. rex.”
Sharing the riches of the West's past—right here in the West— enriches everyone.
NOTE: This essay is a product of Writers on the Range. Writers on the Range (writersontherange.org) is an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West.
About Adam Larson
Adam Larson is former editor of the Wyoming Dinosaur Center’s newsletter.
