Thomas Boylan arrived in Wyoming from California. After seventeen years of collecting bones from nearby Como Bluff, where fossilized remains had been discovered in the 1870s, he intended to create sculptures of dinosaurs in front of his house and gas station. He was daunted by the task of erecting a complete skeleton because the bones came from different animals and species. Instead, he turned to his 102,116 pounds of bones to create a roadside attraction.
In 1932, Boylan and his son constructed a 29-foot by 19-foot cabin along US 30. The cabin was built as part of a gasoline filling station to attract tourists for the 1933 season. Boylan had postcards printed in 1936 calling the site the "Como Bluff Dinosaurium" and also called the structure the "Creation Museum" and "The Building that Used to Walk."
By 1938, the cabin was promoted in Ripley's Believe It or Not as "The World's Oldest Cabin." The gas station was operated by Boylan's widow, Grace, until the 1960s, when the construction of Interstate 80 caused a fall-off in traffic on Route 30. Grace sold the property in 1974.
The Fossil Cabin was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008. Currently, a potential buyer has proposed moving the cabin to North Carolina for display.
Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons
Written by Kyle McLonely
Discuss this with the author and others
No comments yet. Be the first to start the conversation.