Dinosaur

Proposed National ParkUtah and Colorado
The Green River winding through the layered canyon walls of Dinosaur, seen from a rocky overlook
All proposed National ParksDinosaurNo active campaign
Location
Utah/Colorado
Current protection
Dinosaur National Monument
Status
Recurring discussion, no bill
Tier
Tier 1 · National Park
Undiscovered America
Featured in the film and the book

Why should it be a National Park?

There are few places better named than Dinosaur National Monument. This area, which straddles the border of northeastern Utah and northwestern Colorado, is called Dinosaur because of the extensive fossils and geology on display. Twenty-three naturally occurring rock layers are exposed and allow visitors to view remnants of extinct ecosystems spanning 1.2 billion years. Visitors can see evidence of ancient seas and plains where dinosaurs roamed as well as Sahara-like deserts that were home to early mammals. Of the 22 currently recognized geologic periods, 19 are represented in Dinosaur.

The Dinosaur region is currently a national monument run by the NPS, but several times over the last century attempts were made to redesignate the monument as a National Park. If you think of the iconic national monuments, they are all singular sites with limited land. Devils Tower, Muir Woods, the Statue of Liberty, and Ellis Island are great examples of places that are important either ecologically or historically, but consist of one main attraction that does not envelop the landscape. In contrast, National Parks typically secure massive environments that offer sweeping vistas or protect endangered ecosystems, if not both. With this knowledge, it's hard to imagine why Dinosaur is a monument and not a park.

The history of National Park Campaigns

The National Park Service itself drew up a "Proposed Dinosaur National Park" in 1952, at the height of the Echo Park dam fight — the earliest documented park proposal here, now held in the University of Northern Colorado's Dinosaur archive. Later pushes came from Robert Starr Waite (c. 1992), the Utah Legislature (1999), and Reps. Chaffetz and Bishop (2015); all foundered on grazing, oil and gas, and Uintah Basin politics.

Distinct National Park attempts
4 documented (1952 NPS proposal; c. 1992 Waite; 1999; 2015)
Other designation attempts
monument 1915; expansion 1938; 1956 statutory dam ban

Sources

  • UNCO Dinosaur digital archive (digscholarship.unco.edu/dino) — 1950–52 documents incl. the Proposed Dinosaur National Park map
  • NPS Survey of the Recreational Resources of the Colorado River Basin (1950), ch. IX
  • Stratton & Sirotkin, The Echo Park Controversy (1959)
  • Mark Harvey, A Symbol of Wilderness: Echo Park and the American Conservation Movement (1994)
  • Beidleman, Administrative History, Dinosaur National Monument (1963, unpublished, DSC)
  • U.S. Department of the Interior, "Prospective Conservation Designation: National Monument Designations under the Antiquities Act" (2010)
  • Wikipedia, List of proposed National Parks of the United States
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  1. October 4, 1915

    Wilson proclaims an 80-acre monument around Earl Douglass's quarry.

  2. July 14, 1938

    Proclamation 2290 (FDR) enlarges the monument to 203,965 acres, taking in the Green and Yampa canyons; 1939 NPS internal memorandum on the expansion. (UNCO Dinosaur archive; nps.gov)

  3. 1940

    G.A. Moskey internal report on Ute hunting rights within the monument.

  4. 1941

    Echo Park dam first proposed; 1942 Nusbaum–Drury correspondence on archeological impacts; 1943 Olmsted "Dinosaur National Monument Region, Report of Progress" (May 13, 1943).

  5. 1946

    Bureau of Reclamation's Colorado River Storage Project plan; 1950 Secretary Chapman approves Echo Park and Split Mountain dams; NPS's Survey of the Recreational Resources of the Colorado River Basin (1950) finds the dams would "materially and deplorably alter" the Canyon Unit; Leo Diederich's 1950 monument master plan; Bernard DeVoto, "Shall We Let Them Ruin Our National Parks?" (Saturday Evening Post, July 22, 1950).

  6. 1952

    PROPOSED DINOSAUR NATIONAL PARK. NPS "Boundary Map of Proposed Dinosaur National Park & Accompanying General Information" (1952) — the Service's own park proposal during the dam controversy. (University of Northern Colorado, digscholarship.unco.edu/dino) Its acreage, and whether it went to Congress, are not known.

  7. 1955

    Wallace Stegner, ed., This Is Dinosaur (Knopf); April 11, 1956 — Colorado River Storage Project Act bars dams in any National Park or monument; Echo Park dropped, Glen Canyon built instead.

  8. 1958

    Mission 66 quarry visitor center opens, "partly as a result of increased national interest... growing from the publicity inherent to the Echo Park Controversy." (Vernal Express, June 3, 1958)

  9. c. 1992

    Robert Starr Waite, who campaigned for Great Basin National Park, assembles a proposal to make Dinosaur a National Park.

  10. 1999

    Utah House Resolution 6 (Rep. Jackie Biskupski) urges Congress to create Dinosaur National Park. (le.utah.gov)

  11. 2010

    An Interior Department paper lists Vermillion Basin, in the same corner of northwest Colorado, among 14 prospective national monuments.

  12. 2015

    Reps. Jason Chaffetz and Rob Bishop float an upgrade (KSL); stalls over grazing and oil/gas.

  13. 2023–2026

    "recurring talk, no bill." (2026 inventory)