Name: Como Bluffs

 

County: Carbon

 

Authority Name: 

 

GNIS Entry

 

Longitude:  1060351W

Latitude: 415458N

 

Legal Description:

 

Elevation: 6765/2062

(ft/m)

 

Feature Type: Cliff

 

Origin of Name:

 

Other Names: 

 

Alternative Spellings: Como Bluff

 

History:

Location of the famed dinosaur graveyard, one of the most renowned fossil beds discovered in 1877.

Source: WPA

 

Como Bluff is classic ground to those interested in the fossil remains of animals that inhabited this region long ages ago, for it was here that the first dinosaur bones were discovered in the Rocky Mountain region. In 1876 Mr. W. II. Reed, now a professor in the University of Wyoming but then in the employ of the Union Pacific Co., found in the bluff above the now abandoned station of Aurora a large petrified limb bone, which he sent to Prof. O. C. Marsh, of Yale University. Prof. Marsh at once recognized the fossil as belonging to some unknown extinct animal and immediately enlisted the services of Mr. Reed. Collecting was actively carried on here for a period of ten years or more, and as a result of this work Prof. Marsh was able to publish the remarkable series of restorations of dinosaurs which appeared from time to time in several publications. So famous did these fossils become that in 1899 the officials of the Union Pacific Railroad invited the geologists of the country to visit the places where the bones were found. An expedition consisting of geologists from universities and museums in many parts of the United States visited Como Bluff, the Freezeout Hills, and other famous fossil localities.

Source: Guidebook of the Western United States    

 

Stories:

 

Maps:

1:24000 Quadrangle: Aurora Lake

 

Newspapers:

 

More Information: 

 

Pictures: