Dinosaur Ridge
Near Idaho Springs, Colorado
In eighteen seventy-seven, schoolteacher and amateur geologist Arthur Lakes and his friend Henry Beckwith were hiking the hogback ridge just north of Morrison, Colorado, when they spotted enormous fossilized bones jutting from the rock. He had found what would prove to be among the first known Stegosaurus and Apatosaurus specimens ever recovered. Lakes sent specimens to the paleontologist Othniel Marsh, who put Lakes to work.
Marsh's rival Edward Cope also took an interest in Lakes. The ensuing competition between the two men became known as the Bone Wars, one of the most colorful rivalries in the history of science. Colorado later named the Stegosaurus its official state fossil in nineteen eighty-two.
The site is now Dinosaur Ridge, a National Natural Landmark where visitors can walk past the exposed bones in the hillside.
