The Garden Park fossil area is a significant paleontological site located near Cañon City, Colorado. The site is currently on BLM land. It’s one of the first places where the bones of dinosaurs were discovered in the United States.
In the 1870s, the first dinosaur fossils were unearthed.
These discoveries included several species of dinosaurs, some of which were new to science at the time.
Scientists found parts of the skeletons of dinosaurs that roamed the Earth during the Jurassic Period, over 150 million years ago. The remains of dinosaurs like the Stegosaurus, Allosaurus, and Camarasaurus were found.
The site offers interpretive trails and signs that explain the importance of the discoveries made there.
The Bone Wars
Apparently, dinosaur finds can spur all kinds of dinosaur excavation wars.
According to signs along the trails, the excavations at Garden Park were part of a larger phenomenon known as the Bone Wars or the Great Dinosaur Rush.
This was a period of intense and competitive fossil hunting between rival paleontologists Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope.
Their rivalry and the discoveries made in places like Garden Park fueled public interest in dinosaurs and led to significant advances in the field of paleontology.
Location
As you head to the Shelf Road Recreation Area from Canon City, there are several marked trails that show areas where dinosaurs have been excavated.
We stopped here on our way out of camping at the Bank Campground and biking Shelf Road.
These are well-marked with parking areas large enough for RVs, including the Garden Park fossil area. We parked here with our Airstream and there was room for many more vehicles.
Final Thoughts on the Garden Park Fossil Area
Although we are not very knowledgeable about dinosaurs or the strange history of the Bone Wars, stopping to see the actual sites where fossils were unearthed was fascinating.
We had previously visited the Dinosaur National Monument on the border between Utah and Colorado. It is a unique place that has one of the most significant concentrations of dinosaur fossils in the world. Visitors can see over 1,500 dinosaur bones exposed on the face of a massive rock wall.
The Garden Park fossil area and Dinosaur National Monument both offer intriguing glimpses into North America’s prehistoric past.
