William Dallas DeWeese, more commonly known as Dall DeWeese, moved to Cañon City in the 1880s. DeWeese can best be described as a "man of his time," who agressively promoted the benefits of living in Cañon City and played a large role in the development of its infrastructure. Today, DeWeese's irrigation ditch and reservoir still provide water for and recreational opportunites to the area, and the municipal building, now the Royal Gorge Regional History Museum and Center, bares witness to his legacy.
DeWeese was also a hunter-naturalist who was concerned with the conservation of wildlife at the state and national level and was instrumental in the passing of the Alaskan Game Act in 1902, but it was while hunting in the Morrison Formation badlands in Garden Park that DeWeese found his most exciting find: a partial skeleton of Diplodocus longus.
Explore the website and following pages to learn more about Dall DeWeese and his dinosaur.
