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About Dinosaur Monument
In 1909 Earl Douglass, a paleantologist working for the Carnegie Museum, discovered dinosaur bones at what is now known as the Fossil Quarry. Over the next few years, thousands of fossils were removed from the quarry, and in 1915 eighty acres surrounding the quarry were declared a national monument.
The quarry is located near where the Green River emerges from deep chasms passing through the Uinta Mountains, and flows into the Uinta Basin. In 1938, a large area of these canyons was added to the monument, not for dinosaur bones, but for their striking scenery.
The dinosaur quarry is located on the west side of the river, and a road leads up that side of the river from Jensen, Utah. Another road, named Harper's Corner Scenic Driver, access portions of the monument on the east side of the river, which leaves U.S. Highway 40 near Dinosaur, Colorado.
The monument now encompasses 210,584 acres and is visited by 360,584 people a year. It includes areas on both sides of the Utah-Colorado border. UntraveledRoad does not include the dinosaur quarry, but includes the Harper's Corner Scenic Drive which accesses overlooks of the canyons of the Green River.