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Open Ground · Open to dig

The American Fossil Quarry

Pay-to-dig fish quarry, Kemmerer, Wyoming
ACCESSIBLE
Evidence status: Historical tradition. no documented source (historical tradition); legal status unknown (manual verification recommended). This account is presented as historical tradition, not verified fact. Manual verification recommended. Repository evidence: 0 sources · 0 timeline events · 0 media items · legal unknown · view on the Map Evidence on file: historical tradition

The American Fossil Quarry: still unexplained.

Fifty-million-year-old fish

The law of this ground: true
The subject
developing the photograph…
The manifest
Fifty-million-year-old fish
The account

At the American Fossil quarry north of Kemmerer you split fifty million year old Green River shale and keep the fish, rays, and rare creatures you find, one of the great fossil grounds on earth.

Leads, where the trail points now
  • What you can keep: Fifty-million-year-old fish. Confirm the site's current rules and any day fee before you go.
  • Where: Kemmerer, Wyoming. Search only the marked legal area, and bring the right pan, screen, or detector and a container for finds.
  • Best practice: record anything notable, leave the ground as you found it, and check the latest access notices before you travel.
What the record holds

What remains open

  • No period map of the site has surfaced.
  • No contemporary press coverage has been found.
What we know, and what we don't
Established

No documentary claim is yet established. The account rests on tradition.

Still open
  • No period map of the site has surfaced.
  • No contemporary press coverage has been found.
The evidence room

No documentary or visual exhibits have been located yet. The trail below and the open leads are where this dossier grows next — every exhibit that enters here carries a source.

Where the trail points now
  • What you can keep: Fifty-million-year-old fish. Confirm the site's current rules and any day fee before you go.
  • Where: Kemmerer, Wyoming. Search only the marked legal area, and bring the right pan, screen, or detector and a container for finds.
  • Best practice: record anything notable, leave the ground as you found it, and check the latest access notices before you travel.
  • Search Library of Congress + DPLA (IIIF) for period cartography of the site.
  • Run Chronicling America for dated newspaper mentions.
  • Query NARA for archival records tied to the site.

Have a source, a map, or a clipping? Add a lead and it enters the record with its citation.

Start the hunt here
The first leads, so no one walks in cold.
Sources and the record
Related case files

The full hunt kit

Starting brief, what's known and disputed, evidence timeline, source list, map card, coordinate-confidence and legal-access summaries, and a field checklist, free with a Fellowship account.

Latest Word From the Newswire

Context, not proof. The dossier's own sources remain the evidence record.

Checking the wire…

Chart position 41.950°, -110.580° View on the Map