Utah Field House of Natural History State Park Museum

The most excellent Utah Field House of Natural History State Park Museum is located on Main Street in downtown Vernal, Utah. The major focus of the Museum is the geological, paleontological, and anthropological history of the Uinta Basin. The museum inlcudes a Jurassic Hall with, you gussed it, Jurassic dinosaurs, an Eocene Gallery, black light room for flourescent minerals, paleontology laboratory, Anthropology Gallery featuring Fremont and Ute Indian artifacts, and a Dinosaur Garden. I'm afraid I totally blew off the Anthropology Gallery (no photos) and spent all my time hanging with the prehistoric animals. The Museum is open daily from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM and includes the usual gift shop, restrooms, etc. Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for mini-adults (6-12 yrs), and free for micro-adults (5 yrs or less). I got in for $8 because I'm older than a lot of the Museum's fossils. I visited the Museum In July of 2026.

Museum Rotunda/Lobby Complete with Diplodocus Skeleton

Velociraptor Lurking in the Lobby

Paleontology Lab

Jurassic Hall

Jurassic Hall was the first stop on my museum tour. The center piece of the Hall is a diorama containing complete skeletons of allosaurus and stegosaurus. There is also a kids fossil lab for the junior paleontologists.

Jurassic Hall

Fossil Lab for Kids

Jurassic Hall

Excellent Murals

Deadly Predators

Allosaurus

Stegosaurus

Haplocanthosaurus

Haplocanthosaurus
Some Assembly Required

One of the many Displays in Jurassic Hall

Eocene Fossil Gallery

So we skip ahead some 90 million years to the Eocene Epoch. The Eocene is a period in which the ancestors of many modern day mammals appeared. These include horses, rhinos, primates, and whales, to name a few.

Eocene Fossil Gallery

Eocene Mammals

Dolichorhinus

Eocene Flora

Uintatheres

Uintathere

Uintatheres

Protoreodon

Protorohippus

Dinosaur Garden

The Museum's Dinosaur Garden is an outdoor area landscaped with native plants and populated with several almost lifesize replicas of prehistoric animals. I haven't included photos of all of the animals in the garden. I thought the mammoth was an odd choice since his geological age was so much younger than the rest of the group. This was the last stop on my tour, and after browsing through the garden I could exit right to the museum parking lot (very convenient).

Dimetrodon

Mammoth

Utahraptor

Ornithomimus

Triceratops

Tyrannosaurus Rex

Moschops