Earl Douglass Workshop-Laboratory

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.

From the record

“The Earl Douglass Workshop-Laboratory was used by Earl Douglass, the discoverer of the dinosaur bone deposits at the dinosaur quarry in Dinosaur National Monument, to preserve, study and prepare fossil specimens. Located next to the quarry adjacent to the Quarry Visitor Center, the workshop is a 10.5-foot (3.2 m) by 13.17-foot (4.01 m) stone shed with a flat soil roof, built into the hillside.”
Wikipedia article Earl Douglass Workshop-Laboratory, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 17 National Register listings published here for Uintah County · listed in 1986 · category: Building.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Listed as. Douglass, Earl, Workshop--Laboratory - the National Register files a house under its owner's surname.
Address. US 40, Dinosaur National Monument, 84035
When was it listed? December 1986
Category. building
Also known as. Dinosaur National Monument MRA
Census division. Vernal
National Register reference number. 86003400 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

51 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 51 fires within 5 miles of Earl Douglass Workshop-Laboratory between 1992 and 2020, burning about 907 acres in total. 24 started naturally. 1 was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Natural	24
Debris and open burning	8
Recreation and ceremony	7
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	6
Equipment and vehicle use	2
Fireworks	1
Arson/incendiarism	1
Power generation/transmission/distribution	1
Smoking	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
8 September 1995	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	8.0 acres	Utah Division Forestry Fire State Lands	BASCOM
6 September 1993	Natural	under an acre	Vernal Field Office	HAPPYTOUR1
4 September 1994	Natural	under an acre	Dinosaur National Monument	SPLIT MT 2
24 September 2012	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Dinosaur National Monument	ILLEGAL CAMPFIRE 345
21 September 2005	Natural	under an acre	Vernal Field Office	ISLND PARK
1 September 2016	Recreation and ceremony	186 acres	Dinosaur National Monument	GREEN RIVER
8 August 2001	Natural	under an acre	Vernal Field Office	ILNDPRK PN
7 August 1995	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Vernal Field Office	KEGGER

Every fire recorded in Uintah County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 14 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 14 workings within 5 miles of Earl Douglass Workshop-Laboratory: 7 past producers, 3 occurrences, 2 producers, 1 unknown. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Uranium, Gold, Phosphorus-Phosphates. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Split Mountain Gorge	Gold, Platinum	Occurrence	Stream Placer
Split Mountain Warm Spring	Geothermal	Unknown
Bean Draw Prospect	Uranium	Occurrence
Gold Deposits	Gold	Past Producer	Placer
Miracle Claim Mine	Uranium	Past Producer	Replacement
Phosphate Deposit Seg. 4	Phosphorus-Phosphates	Prospect	MARINE SEDIMENTARY
Split Mtn. Phosphate Deposit	Phosphorus-Phosphates	Occurrence	Collophane
Escalante Ranch Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Unconsolidated Sediments
Jensen Sand & Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Jensen Sand and Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Unconsolidated Sediments

Every working recorded in Uintah County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

2 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Photograph	Property	Distance	Listed
	Quarry Visitor Center	under 500 feet	1986
	Josie Bassett Morris Ranch Complex	6.7 miles	1986

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 86003400 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Uintah County	All 17 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.