A crowned jewel of the Frederick Honors College, the Allen L. Cook Spring Creek Preserve is a gift that brings the city of Pittsburgh to the prairies of Wyoming. Located outside of Laramie, Wyoming, this 6,100 acre preserve offers endless opportunities for Frederick Honors Students to pursue academic research and interests, collaborating with faculty from Pitt and the University of Wyoming.
For more than 20 years, Frederick Honors students have studied the ecology and environment of the American West, observing as prairie dogs dart and hide from foxes and eagles, white pelicans take flight into the big sky, and as prong-horns race the vehicles transporting them across the wide-open land.
The evidence of life below the ground is as diverse as that above. Through fossil beds and geological formations, the Preserve holds the secrets of millions of years of plant and animal life, waiting to be discovered and unearthed. The Preserve contains fossil-rich exposures of the Jurassic Morrison Formation, including pristine dinosaur bone-bearing beds, as well as outcrops of other Mesozoic marine and terrestrial deposits.
Co-habitation of the land between humans and animals continues to be discovered, as fire hearths, grinding stones, and teepee rings dating back at least 9,000 years provide a glimpse into the use of the land by Native Americans. The original grade of the 1869 Transcontinental Railroad along with nearby ghost towns and train robbery sites demonstrate continued modern use of the land.
Today, the land is shared by grazing cattle and Frederick Honors students, continuing a multi-generational history of shared use.