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How do we know what we know about the quarry?

The Felch to Marsh letters were acquired in 1989 by Donna Engard and Pat Monaco of the Garden Park Paleontology Society on a trip to the eastern United States. Numerous institutions were visited during that time period including:

• Philadelphia Academy of Sciences/Wagner Free Institute in Philadelphia
• American Museum of Natural History in New York City
• Smithsonian in Washington D.C.
• Yale Peabody Museum in New Haven Connecticut

The Felch to Marsh letters provided only one side of the story. Also collected were some Cope diary information and other notes pertaining to the Cañon City area.

In the early 1990's, when the Denver Museum of Nature and Science was doing work in Cañon City, Kenneth Carpenter followed up on Pat and Donna's initial investigation with a second trip back east to the same locations. During that trip, Ken collected considerable additional information including maps, field notes, etc. All of this information was put into files and notebooks that are housed at the Dinosaur Depot. Still missing were the Marsh to Felch letters that were not found at the Yale Peabody Museum.

Over time, Pat Monaco and Donna Engard continued to correspond with other interested individuals on the information that had been collected about the Marsh Quarry. Sue Ann Bilbey from the Vernal Area in Utah reported that some of the missing correspondence may be located at the University of Utah Library in Salt Lake City. In the mid 1990's Pat Monaco and Donna Engard made a trip to the University of Utah and after some research were able to locate the missing letters in the Earl Douglass files. Apparently these were given to Mr. Douglass by Sadie Felch who wanted to see the letters preserved.

Pat Monaco and Donna Engard made a second trip to the Smithsonian in the 1990's and took many pictures and gathered some additional information pertaining to the Marsh Quarry. Information about the Marsh Quarry was dramatically increasing, but the story still lacked the Marsh to Felch letters.