Earl Douglass, a paleontologist working for the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was a fossil mammal expert, and his search for mammal specimens had brought him to the Uinta Basin in 1907. As Douglass searched for mammals, Andrew Carnegie, benefactor of the Carnegie Museum, financed the construction of a huge new exhibit hall. Carnegie wanted his new exhibit hall filled with "something big." With the help of Museum Director Dr. W.J. Holland, Earl explored the hills along the Green River north of Jensen, Utah, in hopes of finding dinosaur bones for Carnegie. They found enough evidence of dinosaur bones in 1908 to convince Earl to return and continue his search the following year.

On August 17, 1909, Earl was doing what all paleontologists do when they look for bones: walking up and down the small drainages which run through the hills. For it is in these drainages, where the first trickle of spring runoff erode away the rock, that a paleontologist is most likely to see newly-exposed fossil bone. In one such area Earl saw eight tail vertebrae of an Apatosaurus still together just like they were when the dinosaur was living. Earl knew that if the tail was still together maybe the rest of the dinosaur was there as well, so he started digging. Soon he had uncovered one of the best and most complete Apatosaurus skeletons ever found, though it would take six years (the amount of time needed to excavate, ship, restore, and assemble the bones) for the skeleton to make its way to the Carnegie Museum's new exhibit hall.

Earl managed the excavation work at this quarry from 1909 until 1924, for the Carnegie Museum and later for the University of Utah. In that period of time over 350 tons of fossils and attached rock were removed from the Douglass Quarry. The work was often slow. The bone-bearing layer of rock plunged under ground at a steep angle. The overlying layers of clay had to be removed using picks, shovels, and small charges of dynamite, before the bones could be exposed. A small hand-pushed mining car was used to haul the unwanted rock to the dumping site in the bottom of a nearby ravine. The bone-bearing layer of rock itself was also not user-friendly. The hard sandstone was removed by drilling holes at about one-foot intervals, then pounding wedges into the holes until the rock split. The drilling was a dangerous two-person operation with one person wielding a sledge hammer and the other rotating the drill bit. Once a fossil was encountered, smaller chisels and hammers were used until as much rock as possible had been safely removed. Bones were then covered with paper before a protective jacket of burlap strips soaked in plaster was applied. Each jacket was labeled as to its contents, and placed in sturdy wooden crates for the long journey back to the Carnegie Museum, first in horse-drawn freight wagons, and then in railroad boxcars.

Once the fossils arrived at the Carnegie Museum, the tedious job of unpacking, cleaning and sorting began. Luckily, Earl was a meticulous record keeper. Every bone was given a number and every whole or partial skeleton given an additional number. Earl also recorded the original relationships of the bones as they had lain in the rock by painting a huge grid directly on the bone-bearing layer. As a bone was uncovered, he would sketch it and note its number on a chart with a similar grid.

Many of the techniques Earl used at the Douglass Quarry are still used today. Dynamite, wedges, hammers, chisels, plaster, burlap, and grid-mapping systems are mainstays in the field of paleontology. Air-powered hammers are used whenever possible; some so large they take the place of sledge hammers, some so small they resemble dentist drills. But an air-powered tool can only be used when generators and air compressors can be transported to a site. At remote quarries much of the work is done just like in Earl's day.

Ann Elder, Fossil Preparator Dinosaur National Monument