The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World: The Definitive Dinosaur Encyclopedia with Stunning Illustrations, Embark on a Prehistoric Quest!

by Steve Brusatte

So what’s a 1960s teenager to do when his favorite fossil site is being destroyed? Paul Olsen skipped the middlemen and went right to the top. He began writing letters to Richard Nixon, the newly elected president who had yet to disgrace himself. Lots of letters. He begged Nixon to use his presidential powers to get the quarry preserved as a protected park, and even sent a fiberglass cast of a theropod track to the White House. Olsen led a media campaign, too, and was profiled in an article in Life magazine. His brazen persistence paid off: in 1970 the company that owned the quarry donated the land to the county, which made it into a dinosaur park called the Riker Hill Fossil Site. The next year, the site was granted official national landmark status and Olsen received a presidential commendation for his work.