Somervell County Museum, Glen Rose, Texas

After much contemplation, we decided to resign from Yogi Bear Jellystone because we wanted to travel and not keep working. When we left Waller, Texas we headed for Tres Rios RV Resort in Glen Rose, Texas, one of the Ocean Canyon properties we belong to.  Glen Rose is a small town with not much in it except for little shops catering to tourists.  

We stopped at the Somervell County Museum to view some of the artifacts.  They had a lot of old, old memorabilia, including some interesting fossils.  There was also the old Post Office on display (which had a geocache attached to it).

Inside the museum

The museum opened in 1965 in the building currently known as the Talley Building and moved to its corner location of Vernon & Elm streets on the square in 1970.  In 1902, the building it currently resides in was demolished by a tornado that ravished many of the buildings and homes in town and had to be rebuilt.  Prior to 1902 it served as the newspaper, and reopened as a gaslight theater when rebuilt and Coca-Cola Bottling Plant thereafter (In fact, some of the bottles can be found there today)!  When it was obtained by the Somervell County Historical Society in 1970, it became home to the museum.  2020 is the 50th anniversary of the museum in this location!

The newest addition to the museum is a donated lot of Mammoth and Mastadon bones that were recently brought to the museum from a private collection.  So, if you haven’t been in a while, this is a great reason to visit again!  The fossils are fantastic.

Natural casting Dinosaur track

This is a cast of a Tyrannosaurus Rex jawbone from the Museum of Natural History, New York City. The skeleton was discovered by Max Sieber, a "wolf hunter" for cattlemen, living on Hell Creek in the Hell Creek Badlands of Montana, discovered fragments of fossil bones near his cabin. Ignorant as to their possible interest to paleontologists, he did nothing about them. In 1904, William T. Hornaday, in the field for New York's Zoological Park, saw pieces Sieber had picked up and reported the find to Henry Fairfield Osborn of The American Museum of Natural History. In turn Osborn sent young Barnum Brown, who had collected his first dinosaur in 1898, to the site. During the next two years, Brown unearthed several dinosaurs here, among them this new gigantic carnivore. 

Fossil of dinosaur print

Old Post Office

The Somervell County Museum is a really cool place to visit and learn about the history and families of Glen Rose through the unique artifacts donated and by the knowledgeable volunteers who staff it.  The museum is open from 11 am – 4 pm Friday & Saturday each week.  The museum operates by donations only, so please consider making a donation when you visit!