Quarry Visitor Center

Last updated

Quarry Visitor Center
Dinosaur National Monument (6856251672).jpg
Quarry Visitor Center, March 2012
USA Utah location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Usa edcp location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location Dinosaur National Monument, Utah
United States
Coordinates 40°26′26″N109°18′4″W / 40.44056°N 109.30111°W / 40.44056; -109.30111
Built1958
Architect Anshen & Allen; Richard Hein
MPS Dinosaur National Monument MRA
NRHP reference No. 86003401
Significant dates
Added to NRHPDecember 19, 1986 [1]
Designated NHLJanuary 3, 2001 [2]
Dinosaur exhibit structure at Vernal Utah taken in July of 1963 Dinosaur exhibit at Vernal Utah in July 1963.jpg
Dinosaur exhibit structure at Vernal Utah taken in July of 1963

Quarry Visitor Center, in Dinosaur National Monument in Uintah County, Utah, United States was built as part of the National Park Service's (NPS) Mission 66 program of modern architectural design in the US national parks. This visitor center exemplifies the philosophy of locating visitor facilities immediately at the resource being interpreted. The visitor center was closed from 2006 to 2011 due to structural damage from unstable soils. The rotunda structure was demolished and replaced with a new structure of different design, while the quarry section was being stabilized and repaired. [3] [4] [5] The NPS now refers to the new visitor center (built in 2011 about 1,800 feet [550 m] to the southwest) as the "Quarry Visitor Center" and the historical building as the "Quarry Exhibit Hall". [6] [7]

Contents

Design

The visitor center was built in part to attract visitors to the little-visited monument, which had been threatened with flooding by the Echo Park Dam, as a means of guarding against renewed reservoir proposals. [8] [9] The visitor center's concept was first expressed in 1916 when George Otis Smith, the director of the U.S. Geological Survey, suggested that the specimens be displayed in the northern canyon wall. Local citizens, including the dinosaur quarry's discoverer Earl Douglass, proposed a skylit shelter for the display. A temporary shelter for the bones and their excavators was finally built in 1936. A preliminary design in January 1937 was produced by a group including the Park Service Western Office of Design and Construction, the American Museum of Natural History and the directorate of the Park Service that closely resembled the eventual design by Anshen and Allen. A number of succeeding designs followed, becoming more elaborate and departing from this concept. No funding emerged for the design, but a new wood and corrugated sheet metal shelter was built in 1951, reminiscent of the 1916 proposal. [10]

The Quarry Visitor Center was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2001. [2] [11]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uintah County, Utah</span> County in Utah, United States

Uintah County is a county in the U.S. state of Utah. As of the 2020 United States Census the population was 35,620. Its county seat and largest city is Vernal. The county was named for the portion of the Ute Indian tribe that lived in the basin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vernal, Utah</span> City in Utah, United States

Vernal, the county seat and largest city in Uintah County, is in northeastern Utah, approximately 175 miles (280 km) east of Salt Lake City and 20 miles (32 km) west of the Colorado border. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 10,079. The population has since grown to 10,432 as of the 2022 population estimate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Golden Spike National Historical Park</span> National Historical Park of the United States

Golden Spike National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park located at Promontory Summit, north of the Great Salt Lake in east-central Box Elder County, Utah, United States. The nearest city is Corinne, approximately 23 miles (37 km) east-southeast of the site.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dinosaur National Monument</span> National monument in Colorado and Utah, United States

Dinosaur National Monument is an American national monument located on the southeast flank of the Uinta Mountains on the border between Colorado and Utah at the confluence of the Green and Yampa rivers. Although most of the monument area is in Moffat County, Colorado, the Dinosaur Quarry is located in Utah, north of the town of Jensen, Utah. The nearest Colorado town is Dinosaur while the nearest city is Vernal, Utah.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pipestone National Monument</span> United States historic place

Pipestone National Monument is located in southwestern Minnesota, just north of the city of Pipestone, Minnesota. It is located along the highways of U.S. Route 75, Minnesota State Highway 23 and Minnesota State Highway 30. The quarries are culturally significant to 23 tribal nations of North America. Those known to actually occupied the site chronologically are the Yankton Dakota, Iowa, and Omaha peoples. The Quarries were considered a neutral territory in the historic past where all tribal nations could quarry stone for ceremonial pipes. The catlinite, or "pipestone", is traditionally used to make ceremonial pipes. They are vitally important to Plains Indian traditional practices. Archeologists believe the site has been in use for over 3000 years with Minnesota pipestone having been found in ancient North American burial mounds across a large geographic area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tumacácori National Historical Park</span> National Historical Park in Santa Cruz County, Arizona

Tumacácori National Historical Park is located in the upper Santa Cruz River Valley in Santa Cruz County, southern Arizona. The park consists of 360 acres (1.5 km2) in three separate units. The park protects the ruins of three Spanish mission communities, two of which are National Historic Landmark sites. It also contains the landmark 1937 Tumacácori Museum building, also a National Historic Landmark.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wright Brothers National Memorial</span> Monument marking the location of the first airplane flight

Wright Brothers National Memorial, located in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, commemorates the first successful, sustained, powered flights in a heavier-than-air machine. From 1900 to 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright came here from Dayton, Ohio, based on information from the U.S. Weather Bureau about the area's steady winds. They also valued the privacy provided by this location, which in the early twentieth century was remote from major population centers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jurassic National Monument</span>

Jurassic National Monument, at the site of the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry, well known for containing the densest concentration of Jurassic dinosaur fossils ever found, is a paleontological site located near Cleveland, Utah, in the San Rafael Swell, a part of the geological layers known as the Morrison Formation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Register of Historic Places listings in Utah</span>

This is a directory of properties and districts listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Utah, USA. There are more than 1,800 listed properties in Utah. Each of the 29 counties in Utah has at least two listings on the National Register.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beaver Meadows Visitor Center</span> United States historic place

Beaver Meadows Visitor Center, also known as Rocky Mountain National Park Administration Building, is the park headquarters and principal visitors center of Rocky Mountain National Park in central northern Colorado. Completed in 1967, it was designed by Taliesin Associated Architects, and was one of the most significant commissions for that firm in the years immediately following the death of founder Frank Lloyd Wright. It was also one of the last major projects completed under the Park Service Mission 66 project. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2001.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mission 66</span> Program to dramatically expand National Park Service visitor services

Mission 66 was a United States National Park Service ten-year program that was intended to dramatically expand Park Service visitor services by 1966, in time for the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Park Service.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jensen, Utah</span> CDP in Utah, United States

Jensen is a census-designated place in eastern Uintah County, Utah, United States. The population was 372 at the 2020 census. It lies along the Green River and U.S. Route 40, southeast of the city of Vernal, the county seat of Uintah County, and about 17 miles west of the Colorado border. Although Jensen is unincorporated, it has a post office, with the ZIP code of 84035.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colorado National Monument Visitor Center Complex</span> United States historic place

The Colorado National Monument Visitor Center Complex is a group of structures in Colorado National Monument in Mesa County, Colorado, United States, that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Register of Historic Places listings in Uintah County, Utah</span>

This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Uintah County, Utah.

This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Dinosaur National Monument.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Utah State Route 149</span> State highway in Utah, United States

State Route 149 (SR-149) is a state highway in Uintah County in the U.S. state of Utah that connects U.S. Route 40 (US-40) in the town of Jensen with Dinosaur National Monument, 4.2 miles (6.8 km) to the north.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Earl Douglass Workshop-Laboratory</span> United States historic place

The Earl Douglass Workshop-Laboratory was used by Earl Douglass, the discoverer of the dinosaur bone deposits at the dinosaur quarry in Dinosaur National Monument, to preserve, study and prepare fossil specimens. Located next to the quarry adjacent to the Quarry Visitor Center, the workshop is a 10.5-foot (3.2 m) by 13.17-foot (4.01 m) stone shed with a flat soil roof, built into the hillside. It was built about 1920 by Carnegie Museum of Natural History personnel who were working at the site in eastern Utah.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Josie Bassett Morris Ranch Complex</span> United States historic place

The Josie Bassett Morris Ranch Complex comprises a small complex of buildings in what is now Dinosaur National Monument in northeastern Uintah County, Utah, United States. The complex is listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places. It is where Josie Bassett Morris, a small-time rancher and occasional accused stock thief, lived until 1963. The ranch, located in Browns Park, Colorado, was established by the Bassett family in the 1870s. Josie grew up there, and through her family came to know a number of outlaws, including Butch Cassidy, who frequented the area. Morris established her own homestead on Cub Creek in Utah in 1914 with help from friends Fred McKnight and the Chew family.

Cecil John Doty (1907–1990) was an American architect, notable for planning a consistent architectural framework for the U.S. National Park Service's ambitious Mission 66 program in the 1950s and 1960s. Doty spent his childhood in May, Oklahoma, then attended Oklahoma A&M, and received a degree in architectural engineering in 1928. During the Great Depression that immediately followed Doty's graduation, Doty found intermittent work, but was unable to establish a business in Oklahoma City. In order to make a living, Doty signed up with the Civilian Conservation Corps, first as a file clerk, then as an architect in the state parks program.

Architects of the National Park Service are the architects and landscape architects who were employed by the National Park Service (NPS) starting in 1918 to design buildings, structures, roads, trails and other features in the United States National Parks. Many of their works are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and a number have also been designated as National Historic Landmarks.

References

  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
  2. 1 2 "Quarry Visitor Center". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Archived from the original on October 18, 2007. Retrieved April 3, 2008.
  3. "Quarry Construction Background". National Park Service. Retrieved July 14, 2010.
  4. "Grand Opening Announcement". National Park Service. Retrieved February 28, 2017.
  5. Hill, David (June 2, 2009). "Wrecking Ball to Swing on "Mission 66" Visitor Center". Architectural Record. Retrieved July 14, 2010.
  6. "AMERICA'S GREAT OUTDOORS: Salazar Dedicates New Visitor Center at Dinosaur National Monument". doi.gov (Press release). United States Department of the Interior. September 28, 2011. Retrieved November 8, 2024.
  7. "Visitor Centers". nps.gov. National Park Service . Retrieved November 8, 2024.
  8. Sellars, Richard West. "Chapter 5: The War and Postwar Years, 1940-1963". Preserving History in the National Parks: A History. Yale University Press. Retrieved May 31, 2011.
  9. Allaback, Sarah. "Quarry Visitor Center". Mission 66 Visitor Centers. National Park Service. Retrieved May 31, 2011.
  10. Allaback. "Quarry Visitor Center". p. 2.
  11. Allaback, Sarah; Carr, Ethan & Sprinkle, Jr, John H. (September 1, 2000). "National Historic Landmark Nomination: Quarry Visitor Center" (PDF). National Park Service. and Accompanying seven images, from 1958 and 1999 and undated plan  (32 KB)