Local museums combine efforts, seek return of some of northern Wyoming’s most famous dinosaur fossils

Local residents are working with the town of Greybull to establish a dinosaur museum that will display museum-quality casts and tell the stories of some of the most iconic Jurassic-aged dinosaurs from Wyoming that once lived in the area.
For nearly 100 years, fossils quarries and dig sites near the towns of Shell and Greybull in Big Horn County (BHC) have produced some of the world’s most complete and scientifically important Jurassic-age dinosaur and marine reptile skeletons. Tens of thousands of dinosaur bones have been collected, crated, and shipped out of BHC and currently reside in world-class museums in New York City, Washington, DC, Switzerland, Japan, England, and elsewhere. While the discoveries, excavations, and fossils of the Big Horn County are documented in scientific journals, travel guides, educational materials and historical accounts, local displays and local knowledge of the importance of these discoveries are very modest. Local displays include a few casts of skulls, some femurs, and some bone fragments with almost no displays of who collected them or the scientific importance of the discoveries. Over the next three years the Big Horn Basin Dinosaur and Geoscience Museum and the Greybull Museum seek to establish a permanent collection in Greybull of a select group of full-body casts along with displays highlighting their paleontological and historical significance, and build a structure to house them. Such a permanent display would provide significant educational, economic, and social benefits to nearby communities and tourists alike.  
Casts to be acquired include Big Al 2, the most complete Allosaurus found anywhere in the world. Allosaurus was a predatory Jurassic-aged meat-eating ancestral cousin to the popular Tyrannosaurs rex.  Other exceptional casts to be acquired include a nearly complete Stegosaurus (spike-tailed plant eating dinosaur with large fan-like plates on its back) and a 45-foot-long long-tailed and long-necked sauropod (plant eating dinosaur) previously unknown to science and a three-foot long baby sauropod. Casts of these dinosaurs will be purchased because the original bones would cost millions of dollars.
In addition to the Jurassic dinosaurs, the museum will host displays and fossils that will highlight the research from groundbreaking projects on local Jurassic dinosaur tracks, ancient mammals and plants currently being conducted by multiple world-class institutions and scientists.
The Big Horn Basin Dinosaur and Geoscience Museum (BHBDGM) is currently engaged in a capital campaign to acquire the dinosaur collection, whereas the Greybull Museum is soliciting funds to build an addition on to the existing Greybull Museum. Wyoming historically exports more economic and intellectual commodities including rare fossils than it imports. The Museums, with the help of the public, are hoping to return to the Big Horn Basin some of the most spectacular dinosaur fossils collected right in its own backyard and currently residing in some of the best dinosaur museums and exhibits in the world.  The Museums need your help to preserve our history for future generations to enjoy, and to educate people on the role these amazing fossils have had in the world of paleontology and geology.   
For more information, contact either Erik Kvale at 812-340-3218 or email Erik at tidalrhythmite@gmail.com or  Nolan O’Neal nolan.oneal@icloud.com (BHBDGM) or visit our website at bighornbasindinos.org or contact, info@bighornbasindinos.org. To contact the Greybull Museum call 307-765-2444. The Big Horn Basin Dinosaur and Geoscience Museum and the Greybull Museum are established 501(c)3 Wyoming Non-Profit Corporations and contributions to either museum is tax-deductible.