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Quarry Visitor Center
Visitor center in the Dinosaur National Monument in Utah, United States From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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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]
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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 visitor center was completed in 1958, and the following engineers and contractor realized the final architectural design: Robert D. Dewell, Structural Engineer; Earl & Gropp, Mechanical and Electrical Engineers; R. K. McCullough Construction Co., General Contractors.[11]
The Quarry Visitor Center was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2001.[2][12]
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