Early inhabitants of north-central Oregon included
Sahaptin-speaking people of the
Umatilla,
Wasco, and
Warm Springs tribes as well as the
Northern Paiutes, speakers of a
Uto-Aztecan (Shoshonean) language. All were
hunter-gatherers competing for resources such as elk,
huckleberries, and
salmon. Researchers have identified 36 sites of related archeological interest, including rock shelters and
cairns, in or adjacent to the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. Most significant among the prehistoric sites are the Picture Gorge
pictographs, consisting of six panels of rock art in the canyon at the south end of the Sheep Rock Unit. The art is of undetermined origin and age but is "centuries old". The John Day basin remained largely unexplored by non-natives until the mid-19th century.
Lewis and Clark noted but did not explore the John Day River while traveling along the Columbia River in 1805.
John Day, for whom the river is named, apparently visited only its confluence with the Columbia in 1812. In 1829,
Peter Skene Ogden, working for the
Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), led a company of explorers and fur trappers along the river through what would later become the Sheep Rock Unit.
John Work, also of the HBC, visited this part of the river in 1831. In the 1840s, thousands of settlers, attracted in part by the lure of free land, began emigrating west over the
Oregon Trail. Leaving drought, worn-out farms, and economic problems behind, they emigrated from states like Missouri, Illinois, and Iowa in the
Midwest to Oregon, especially the
Willamette Valley in the western part of the state. After passage of the
Homestead Act of 1862 and the discovery of gold in the upper John Day basin, a fraction of these newcomers abandoned the Willamette Valley in favor of eastern Oregon. Some established villages and engaged in subsistence farming and ranching near streams. Settlement was made more practical by a supply route from
The Dalles on the Columbia River to gold mines at
Canyon City in the upper John Day valley. By the late 1860s, the route became formalized as
The Dalles Military Road, which passed along Bridge Creek and south of Sheep Rock. Clashes between natives and non-natives and the desire of the U.S. Government to populate the region with Euro-Americans led to the gradual removal of native residents to
reservations, including three in north-central Oregon:
Warm Springs,
Burns Paiute, and
Umatilla. In 1864, a company of soldiers sent to protect mining camps from raids by Northern Paiutes discovered fossils in the
Crooked River region, south of the John Day basin. One of their leaders, Captain
John M. Drake, collected some of these fossils for
Thomas Condon, a missionary pastor and amateur geologist who lived in The Dalles. Recognizing the scientific importance of the fossils, Condon accompanied soldiers traveling through the region. He discovered rich fossil beds along Bridge Creek and near Sheep Rock in 1865. Condon's trips to the area and his public lectures and reports about his finds led to wide interest in the fossil beds among scientists such as
Edward Drinker Cope of the
Academy of Natural Sciences. One of them, paleontologist
Othniel C. Marsh of
Yale, accompanied Condon on a trip to the region in 1871. Condon's work led to his appointment in 1872 as Oregon's first state geologist and to international fame for the fossil beds. Specimens from the beds were sent to the
Smithsonian Institution and other museums worldwide, and by 1900 more than 100 articles and books had been published about the John Day Fossil Beds. During the first half of the 20th century, scientists such as
John C. Merriam,
Ralph Chaney,
Frank H. Knowlton, and
Alonzo W. Hancock continued work in the fossil beds, including those discovered near Clarno in about 1890. Remote and arid, the John Day basin near the fossil beds was slow to attract homesteaders. The first settler in what became the Sheep Rock Unit is thought to have been Frank Butler, who built a cabin along the river in 1877. In 1881, Eli Casey Officer began grazing sheep on a homestead claim in same general area. His son Floyd later lived there with his family and sometimes accompanied Condon on his fossil hunts. In 1910, James and Elizabeth Cant bought from the Officer family. and converted it to a sheep ranch, which was eventually expanded to a sheep-and-cattle ranch of about . Merriam, a
University of California paleontologist who had led expeditions to the region in 1899 and 1900, encouraged the State of Oregon to protect the area. In the early 1930s the state began to buy land for state parks at Picture Gorge, the Painted Hills, and Clarno that later became part of the national monument. In 1951 the
Oregon Museum of Science and Industry established Camp Hancock, a field school for young students of geology, paleontology, and other sciences, on public lands surrounded by what would later become the Clarno Unit. In 1974
Congress authorized the National Park Service to establish the national monument, and President
Gerald R. Ford signed the authorization. After the State of Oregon had completed the land transfer of the three state parks to the federal government, the monument was officially established on October 8, 1975. The Cant Ranch House and associated land and outbuildings were listed on the
National Register of Historic Places as the James Cant Ranch Historic District in 1984. After the monument opened in 1975, the ranch house served as headquarters for all three units. In 2005, the lower floor of the ranch house was opened to the public; it features exhibits about the cultural history of the region. The Thomas Condon Paleontology Center, a $7.5 million museum and visitor center at the Sheep Rock Unit, also opened in 2005. Among the center's offerings are displays of fossils, murals depicting life in the basin during eight geologic times ranging from about 45 million to about 5 million years ago, and views of the paleontology laboratory. In June 2011, work was finished on a new ranger residence in the Painted Hills Unit that makes the unit almost
carbon-neutral. Solar panels generate enough electricity to power the house as well as the ranger's electric vehicle, on loan from its manufacturer for a year. The project is part of ongoing efforts to make the whole park carbon-neutral. ==Geology and paleontology==