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Photograph of Fossil Cabin
Photograph by Jeffrey Beall, CC BY 3.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Fossil Cabin, The

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.

From the record

“The Fossil Cabin near Medicine Bow, Wyoming, United States, was built in 1932 as a roadside attraction. The cabin is built of dinosaur bones excavated at nearby Como Bluff, using a total of 5,796 bones.”

Wikipedia article Fossil Cabin, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 43 National Register listings published here for Carbon County · listed in 2008 · 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 3 buildingss as contributing to the listing.
  • Address. US 30, Medicine Bow
  • When was it listed? April 2008
  • Category. building
  • Census division. Hanna
  • National Register reference number. 08000289 - 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

4 since 2018

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 4 fires within 5 miles of Fossil Cabin, The between 2018 and 2020, burning about 1 acre in total. None started naturally. None 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined2
Equipment and vehicle use1
Power generation/transmission/distribution1

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

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
29 September 2018Power generation/transmission/distributionunder an acreRawlins Field OfficeMILE MARKER 278 POINT 5
28 September 2018Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreRawlins Field OfficeROBBERS ROOST
13 August 2019Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreAlbany CountyMARSHALL
12 August 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreAlbany CountyROCK RIVER 2

Every fire recorded in Carbon County

Mines and quarries near this property

3 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 3 workings within 5 miles of Fossil Cabin, The: 2 prospects, 1 occurrence. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Bentonite, Uranium. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Airborne Anomaly #56-20UraniumOccurrence
Como RidgeBentoniteProspect
HewardSand and Gravel, ConstructionProspect

Every working recorded in Carbon County

Storms near this property

4 since 2002

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Medicine Bow, the town this property stands in, in 4 storm reports between 2002 and 2024: 3 hail, 1 tornado. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
June 2024HailMedicine Bow-A storm chaser reported 2-inch diameter hail 4 miles NE of Medicine Bow.
June 2015Tornado (EF0)Medicine Bow-A weak tornado touched down in open country eight miles east of Medicine Bow and slowly moved east. It dissipated five minutes later just west of County Road 610. No damage was reported.
July 2002HailMedicine Bow-Storm dropped large amounts of hail with sizes up to 1 1/2 inches. Heavy rain also occurred creating local areas of drifted hail as well as washing out a fewrural roads.
August 2002HailMedicine Bow-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Carbon 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

3 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 PropertyDistance Listed
Site 32 SL-O Intermediate Field Historic District5.8 miles2012
Medicine Bow Union Pacific Depot6.9 miles1982
Virginian Hotel6.9 miles1978

Sources for this property

National Archives recordThe nomination case file for reference 08000289 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia articleCommunity-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Carbon CountyAll 43 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.
  • Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.