Wyoming's Unique Roadside Attraction Is The 'World's Oldest Building' (But For A Bizarre Reason)

Imagine you're on the open road, somewhere along U.S. Route 30 in southeastern Wyoming, and you pass by an odd cabin with a sign that says "Believe it or not." What is there to believe, you might think — it's just a regular cabin off the highway. The Fossil Cabin is considered the world's oldest building, even though it's a mere roadside attraction. But there's a twist behind that claim: While the cabin itself was built in 1932, its walls are made from dinosaur bones that are millions of years old. As the only documented building in the country made entirely of 5,796 fossilized dinosaur bones, this bizarre site makes for a fascinating pit stop that breaks up the monotony of long drives.

But who would build a cabin with dinosaur bones, and, more importantly, why? The answer dates back to 1908, when Thomas and Grace Boylan decided to make this area their home. Boylan hoped to drive more customers to his gas station, which is why he started gathering dinosaur bones from Como Bluff. Initially, he didn't have a cabin in mind — Boylan thought that a dinosaur skeleton would be interesting enough to get people to stop by. A specialist from the University of Wyoming later found that the bones were too few to constitute a full skeleton and came from different species.

Boylan would eventually repurpose this collection of bones to construct the Fossil Cabin. While he built the cabin, the couple occupied the stone house next to it. Their residence not only served as their living space, but also a museum that was once open to the public. After completion, it weighed 102,166 pounds. Today, travelers looking for the most unique roadside stops in America would be hard-pressed to find many stranger than the Fossil Cabin.

The Fossil Cabin is connected to the discoveries that put Wyoming on the paleontological map. It goes back to the late 19th century, when paleontologists Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope competed for fossils in several locations, including Como Bluff in Wyoming. This period would be dubbed the "Bone Wars." After the paleontologists abandoned the sites, future Fossil Cabin creator Thomas Boylan would explore the fossil bed and gather the bones. Boylan would stay in charge of his cabin's museum operations until he passed away in 1947. His wife, Grace, followed suit but eventually had to sell it in 1974. Although you could have toured the museum back then, it can only be admired from the outside now.

Today, when you drive by the site, you'll see that the Fossil Cabin still looks every bit as unusual as its history suggests. It's a southwest-facing structure that's just under 28 and a half feet long and over 18 feet wide, located 7 miles east of Medicine Bow and 114 miles north of the peaceful city of Fort Collins, Colorado. The Fossil Cabin's exterior is covered with dinosaur bones set in an irregular pattern with thick mortar joints, with minimal rock filler used. Boylan spent 17 years gathering the bones used to construct the cabin.

Back then, the roadside attraction brought in crowds and captured media attention — Ripley's Believe It or Not! even wrote a story about it. Unfortunately, there's much less interest in the Fossil Cabin today. But travelers who know about this underrated stop can still see the ancient dinosaur bones in Wyoming for free, even with the property on sale. For another roadside attraction in Wyoming, drive to "Little America," which has its own wild origin story.