| What makes it historical? |
On August 17, 1909, Earl Douglass discovered the first dinosaur bones here, and within five days, there were visitors swarming to the site! Originally called the Carnegie Quarry, his digsite produced over 500 dinosaurs and other Jurassic creatures! It wasn’t until 1958, though, that the site got a large-scale interpretive center as part of a national program called Mission 66!
The goal of Mission 66 was to modernize the national park system by the 50th anniversary of the National Park Service in 1966! Led by Lemuel Garrison and pitched to President Eisenhower by Conrad Wirth, the program promised uniform entrance signs and created the concept of “visitor centers” in each park!
Many of these visitor centers were built to house as many people as possible and weren’t built to blend with the environment. This architectural style came to be known as Park Service Modern, and you can see it in the Quarry Visitor Center’s concrete blocks, large windows, and “butterfly” steel frame construction, build right up against the hill where the fossils were discovered. Compare this design with other visitor centers like the one in Bandelier National Monument, and you’ll see the difference right away! |
