“I’ve been surrounded by fossils all of my life,” said Stuart Schmidt . 605 SPOTLIGHT GRAND RIVER MUSEUM Located on Highway 12 driving into Lemmon is the Grand River Museum —a place that celebrates everything from paleontology to indigenous history to homesteading to family heirlooms. The idea stemmed from finds right on the Schmidt ranch, beginning with his great-grandpa homesteading on the land. “There's a story about my grandpa and his sister who were very young, 10 or 12 years old, and they went out to retrieve the milk cows,” described Stuart. “There were no fences at the time, and when they went out to get the cows, they found a full dinosaur laid out eroded out of the land.” He continued, “They went back to their dad and told him that they found a ‘dead monster’ out there.” Stuart says those particular dinosaur fossils “dried up and blew away,” but the family kept discovering more treasures.
WRITTEN BY ALANA SNYDER + PHOTOS BY ALANA AND JOHN SNYDER
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