The Bone Wars
HISTORY This Week
The HISTORY® Channel | Back Pocket Studios
4.5 • 4.2K Ratings
🗓️ 29 September 2025
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
October 4, 1915. President Woodrow Wilson designates Dinosaur National Monument as a national historic site. That’s a big deal, right? There must’ve been a grand ribbon-cutting ceremony, maybe even a parade. But no. In 1915, nobody really cares about dinosaurs. But that is all about to change. And when it does, it is largely because of two paleontologists. Two guys who started off as best friends … until their growing obsession with unearthing and cataloging dinosaur bones would turn them into rivals. Then enemies. How did the competition between a pair of paleontologists lead to unprecedented dinosaur discoveries? And how did their rivalry unhinge them both?
Special thanks to guest Dr. Hans Sues, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.
** This episode originally aired October 3, 2022.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The History Channel, original podcast. |
| 0:05.0 | History This Week, October 4th, 1915. |
| 0:10.4 | I'm Sally Helm. |
| 0:13.2 | It is a big win for anyone who loves dinosaurs. |
| 0:19.6 | President Woodrow Wilson officially establishes 80 acres on the Utah-Colorado border as |
| 0:25.2 | Dinosaur National Monument. |
| 0:28.8 | It's been an active paleontology site for six years, ever since a scientist spotted something |
| 0:34.7 | at the top of a sandstone ledge. |
| 0:40.2 | He called it in his diary a beautiful sight. The rock had been worn away by wind and rain to reveal eight tailbones of a brontosaurus. |
| 0:49.9 | A brontosaurus who had walked on the same high desert plateau |
| 0:54.3 | where Native American tribes would hunt for buffalo |
| 0:56.8 | tens of millions of years later. |
| 1:00.0 | And as of today, that spot is officially protected, |
| 1:04.7 | officially a monument to the dinosaurs. |
| 1:11.3 | Imagine the spectacle on the monument's opening day. |
| 1:15.8 | Parades of dignitaries in pinstriped suits. |
| 1:18.8 | Excited speeches, marching bands. |
| 1:21.4 | Ladies admiring the fossils while twirling their parasols. |
| 1:25.3 | Kids running around in the Utah dust, |
| 1:29.1 | pretending to be their favorite dinosaur, roaring, and raising their hands in the air like claws. Only none of that happens. |
| 1:38.5 | President Wilson signs this document in Washington, D.C., and has it sent off to the Bureau of Rules and Documents. |
| 1:46.0 | And no one ever celebrated the Bureau of Rules and Documents with a ticker tape parade. |
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