Bone Cabin Quarry is a dinosaur quarry that lay approximately northwest of

Laramie, Wyoming Laramie is a city in and the county seat of Albany County, Wyoming, United States. The population was estimated 32,711 in 2019, making it the third-largest city in Wyoming after Cheyenne and Casper. Located on the Laramie River in southeastern ...

near historic

Como Bluff Como Bluff is a long ridge extending east–west, located between the towns of Rock River and Medicine Bow, Wyoming. The ridge is an anticline, formed as a result of compressional geological folding. Three geological formations, the Sundance, t ...

. During the summer of 1897 Walter Granger, a paleontologist from the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...

, came upon a hillside littered with

Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The J ...

period dinosaur bone fragments. Nearby was a sheepherder cabin built entirely out of fossil bones, hence the name "Bone Cabin Quarry." After Granger's discovery in late August 1897, the quarry was kept secret until early 1898, when the manpower could be amassed to undertake a full-scale excavation.

Henry Fairfield Osborn Henry Fairfield Osborn, Sr. (August 8, 1857 – November 6, 1935) was an American paleontologist, geologist and eugenics advocate. He was the president of the American Museum of Natural History for 25 years and a cofounder of the American Euge ...

, curator of the American Museum of Natural History headed the expedition. The bones of perfect skeletons lay thickly crowded. , 483 parts of dinosaur were found, packed in 275 boxes with a weight of . The excavation area was only . Bone Cabin Quarry was excavated from 1898 until 1905, when the productivity of specimens thinned. Some of the dinosaurs found at the Bone Cabin Quarry include ''

Stegosaurus ''Stegosaurus'' (; ) is a genus of herbivorous, four-legged, armored dinosaur from the Late Jurassic, characterized by the distinctive kite-shaped upright plates along their backs and spikes on their tails. Fossils of the genus have been foun ...

'', ''

Allosaurus ''Allosaurus'' () is a genus of large carnosaurian theropod dinosaur that lived 155 to 145 million years ago during the Late Jurassic epoch (Kimmeridgian to late Tithonian). The name "''Allosaurus''" means "different lizard" alluding to ...

'' and ''

Apatosaurus ''Apatosaurus'' (; meaning "deceptive lizard") is a genus of herbivorous sauropod dinosaur that lived in North America during the Late Jurassic period. Othniel Charles Marsh described and named the first-known species, ''A. ajax'', in 1877, an ...

''. ''

Gargoyleosaurus ''Gargoyleosaurus'' (meaning "gargoyle lizard") is one of the earliest ankylosaurs known from reasonably complete fossil remains. The holotype was discovered in 1995 at the Bone Cabin Quarry West locality, in Albany County, Wyoming in exposures ...

'' is also known from the Bone Cabin Quarry West locality. The Ornithopod Species ''

Dryosaurus altus ''Dryosaurus'' ( , meaning 'tree lizard', Greek ' () meaning 'tree, oak' and () meaning 'lizard'; the name reflects the forested habitat, not a vague oak-leaf shape of its cheek teeth as is sometimes assumed) is a genus of an ornithopod dinosaur ...

'' is also present in the Bone Cabin Quarry. From the Annual Field Report of the

, 1898:

On June 12th a rich strike was made in opening "Bone Cabin Quarry". This is where the larger part of the year's collection was secured. The work was arduous and additional help was needed. P. Kaisen was engaged at the end of June. The party stayed here until the close of the field season on October 1st.

About southwest of Bone Cabin Quarry, a further quarry, called Nine Mile Quarry, was opened up in June 1899, near Nine Mile Crossing of Little Medicine Bow River. An incomplete ''

Brontosaurus ''Brontosaurus'' (; meaning "thunder lizard" from Greek , "thunder" and , "lizard") is a genus of gigantic quadruped sauropod dinosaurs. Although the type species, ''B. excelsus'', had long been considered a species of the closely related ''A ...

'' skeleton was recovered.

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* * {{cite web , title=Fossil Bone Cabin , website=Atlas Obscura , date=6 June 2012 , url=http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/fossil-bone-cabin , ref={{sfnref , Atlas Obscura , 2012 , access-date=31 December 2022
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Jurassic geology of Wyoming Morrison Formation Paleontology in Wyoming Jurassic paleontological sites of North America 1897 in paleontology

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