Quarry Visitor Center, in

Dinosaur National Monument 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 Utah was

built Built may refer to: * ''Built'' (TV series), an American reality television series that aired on the Style Network *''Built: the hidden stories behind our structures'', 2018 book by Roma Agrawal * Building Built different definition- Levi on P ...

as part of the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government within the United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of ...

Mission 66 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. When the National P ...

program of modern architectural design in the US

national park A national park is a natural park in use for conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individua ...

s. This

visitor center A visitor center or centre (see American and British English spelling differences), visitor information center, tourist information center, is a physical location that provides tourist information to visitors. Types of visitor center A visi ...

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.

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 Echo Park Dam was proposed in the 1950s by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation as a central feature of the Colorado River Storage Project. Situated on the Green River, a major tributary of the Colorado River, the dam was proposed for the Echo Park dis ...

, as a means of guarding against renewed reservoir proposals. 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. The Quarry Visitor Center was declared a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

in 2001. and

References

External links

Quarry Visitor Center
* {{National Register of Historic Places Mission 66 National Historic Landmarks in Utah Buildings and structures in Uintah County, Utah National Park Service visitor centers National Register of Historic Places in Dinosaur National Monument Tourist attractions in Uintah County, Utah Park buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Utah Historic American Buildings Survey in Utah National Register of Historic Places in Uintah County, Utah

Design

See also

References

External links