The Boy Paleontologists of Hayward

These school-aged children changed Pleistocene research forever.

If you were to look for fossils, where would you find them? There’s a high chance you need to fly hundreds of miles away to visit a fossil site. Many fossil sites are far from the reach of most humans.

Now, imagine that your trip is only a short drive away from your city. This was the experience of the Boy Paleontologists, a group of schoolboys in Hayward led by their local teacher. Over the course of fifteen years, the boys unearthed thousands of fossils from a quarry where Interstate 680 sits today. Their finds ranged from gigantic Ice Age creatures like mammoths and mastodons to saber-toothed cats. The boys’ massive contributions to science gained national fame, and they were even featured in a Life magazine in 1945.

In 1940, science teacher Wes Gordon discovered several mammoth bone fragments east of Osgood Road, in an Irvington gravel pit known as Bell Quarry. This area previously had a history of fossil finds from the Pleistocene Epoch. However, Gordon saw the quarry’s potential to yield more fossils. Within four years, he organized a group of 12–16 boys to assist in the excavations. Three of them included his sons: Billy Gordon, Philip Gordon, and Wesley Gordon Jr. The rest of the boys were school-aged children from Hayward.

Wesley Dexter Gordon taught his boys the ropes for field paleontology. They learned how to use prospecting tools, and understood the guidelines for locating and removing fossils from the quarry’s matrix. On excavation days, the boys arrived on site in Gordon’s car with the needed tools: shovels, brushes, picks, hammers, and chisels. They spent hours mining the walls, mostly in a layer that was only nine inches thick. One day, the boys extracted 68 specimens from the rock. Nearly a year later, word of the Boy Paleontologists’ productive excavations spread far and wide. They appeared in magazines, radio, and television across the United States.

The fossils that the Boy Paleontologists uncovered largely came from the Pleistocene Epoch, around 1.3 million years ago. Some of these fossils were megafauna, like mammoths, mastodons, giant ground sloths, short-faced bears, dire wolves, Ice Age camels, saber-toothed cats, and prehistoric horses. Others belonged to animals you can find alive today, like fish, rodents, turtles, clams, frogs, seals, and deer. Petrified wood and plant impressions were discovered, too.

“What we find belongs to the public domain of science.”

The Boy Paleontologists lived by a single philosophy: “What we find belongs to the public domain of science.” The majority of the fossils were donated to the UCMP, the Museum of Paleontology at the University of California, Berkeley. Most of these specimens are reserved for research and cannot be viewed by the general public. Nevertheless, the remaining Irvingtonian fossils can be found in Fremont, at the Children’s Natural History Museum, the Washington Township Museum of Local History, and the Gilbert C. Yee Museum at Ohlone College. You can visit Sabercat Historical Park to see a grassy hill that is an extension of the dig site.

The remaining quarry is located in Sabercat Historical Park and can be viewed by the public. Photograph by the author. © 2026 Fossils in Fremont. All rights reserved.

Unfortunately, Bell Quarry was sold to the State of California for the construction of the I-680 and Route 23 interchange. This marked the end of the excavations undertaken by Wes Gordon’s team. By its conclusion in 1960, 29,000 fossils had been uncovered within a span of over 400 days. Even though the Boy Paleontologists never returned, their legacy is honored by the museums and parks around the East Bay.

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Sources:

1. Boy Paleontologists | Washington Township Museum of Local History
2. Irvington Fossils — Background Information
3. Discovery & Excavation — Ohlone Museum of Geology and Prehistory

© 2026 Fossils in Fremont. All rights reserved.