“We never intended to start an industry,’’ said Shirley Ulrich, who cofounded Ulrichs Fossil Gallery with her husband, Carl, in 1988. “We just kept getting more and more excited as we dug up different things. Word of mouth did the rest.’’
Ulrichs and a handful of neighboring private quarries are located in Kemmerer, a mining town 7,000 feet high in the southwest corner of Wyoming. Shortly after its founding in 1897, Kemmerer boasted a population of 5,000 residents — almost all of them coal miners. One was a haberdasher, James Cash Penney, who figured out how to cheaply clothe miners in rugged coveralls shipped in bulk from the East. In 1902 he opened the first JCPenney, a modest building that still stands on Pine Avenue, and still offers JCPenney products.
Time has been good to the folks here. It fashioned them coal, natural gas, and most recently a thriving fossil collection business.
Four decades ago, Shirley Ulrich was shocked to learn that fossil hunters were arriving in town with dynamite to blow the tops off mountain ridges. This was Wyoming; no laws prohibited it. When a US Senate candidate at a political rally mistakenly left a microphone on, Ulrich stepped to the podium to plead with the candidate for federal protection of the state’s fossil treasure — knowing she was also speaking to the entire audience. So was sown the seed that, in 1972, became Fossil Butte National Monument.
Fossil Butte protects 13 square miles of rock that once sat below the long-gone Fossil Lake. It was one of a series of freshwater lakes covering what is now the Wyoming/Utah boundary. Visitors to the monument are welcome to tour exhibits and walk the trails, but not to dig. For souvenirs, collectors must book at one of at least four private quarries in the region.
