The year is 1947. The place is the heartland of America. An amateur dinosaur enthusiast and fossil hunter discovers a dog digging up what he believes to be an old dinosaur bones near a small fishing lodge in Diggs County, which is a small rural area right off US Highway 498.
The man excited about his find but unsure of its authenticity, takes the bones back to some of his paleontologist buddies. The paleontologists verify that these bones are indeed authentic dinosaur bones! The group is overjoyed, because it’s been years since bones of this caliber have been uncovered in America. They presume that there must be more. The group finds donors and benefactors and raises enough money to purchase the fishing lodge and all the surrounding land. They shut down the fishing lodge and turn it into a makeshift base camp for further study of the area.
In mere months professors and college students flock to Diggs County and take up residence in the fishing lodge. The lodge has been turned into a dormitory and cafeteria for all the students. However, the now very large group of college students realizes that they need more money to continue their work and since securing donations and grants can prove to be very challenging, they decide to open up their cafeteria to the public to help subsidize their work. Weary travelers motoring through Diggs County could now stop and grab a bite at a place the students quickly named “restaurant.”
Shortly, thereafter, seeing the success of “restaurant” the students opened a small counter service restaurant called “Dino-Bite” where motorists travelling down Highway 498, could stop for an ice cream cone or cool beverage.
These two culinary endeavors were just the thing to provide the meager funding they needed to keep moving forward. The students and professors established a dig site near the fishing lodge and uncovered many more rare and amazing finds. There were so many dinosaur bones uncovered that the group renamed the dig site “the boneyard.”
Now, if you know anything about college students, you know that they work hard but they also play hard. Perhaps most synonymous with college students is their fondness for pranks. This group of students, while serious about paleontology, was no different. One recurring joke among the students was to find signs all over town and add the suffix “osaurus” behind a word. “International-osaurus.” “Automobile-osaurus.” Of course, pranks don’t just end. Each prank must be overdone by the next. One particularly emboldened student took it upon himself to do the ultimate prank. He climbed up on the roof of the “restaurant” and erected a large “osaurus” sign to the end of the restaurant sign, thus creating “Restaurantosaurus.”
The surrounding counties were buzzing about the major fossil finds and soon word had spread throughout the heartland and tourists were flocking to Diggs County to learn all they could about the dinosaur bones being unearthed. Tourists would marvel at the boneyard and visit the lodge, which had now been transformed, again, into an improvised visitor’s center. The lodge/dormitory/cafeteria/visitor’s center/museum became a lounge, recreational area, and a home to all the artifacts discovered in the area.
The dig site continued to grow, thus the lodge needed to grow as well to support the work. However, money was not overflowing so they couldn’t just fund the expansion traditionally. They had to look for creative ways to grow the lodge. Over the years, the students would add on to the lodge using whatever they could find, such as adding the Quonset hut for vehicle maintenance, semi-permanent tents adjacent to the Quonset hut for extra storage, and an airstream trailer was connected to the lodge for additional recreational space that the students named “The Hip Joint.” Inside all of these spaces the students would leave their mark, through art work, pictures, or pranks that can still be seen today.
The Dino Institute was now officially formed and was even offering classes on-site to graduate students. However, money remained an issue and if they wanted to grow they would need help. In 1973, the founding board members of the Dino Institute reached out to Doctor Helen Marsh to help generate more profits. Dr. Marsh had developed a reputation for saving failing museums and securing additional funding. Shortly, after her arrival at the Dino Institute she used the majority of the capital left to purchase a fledgling company named Chrono-Teck Inc which had just lost their government funding. Six months after that purchase she announced, to a very shocked scientific community, that her new company Chrono-Teck Inc in collaboration with the Dino Institute had invented a vehicle that could travel through time called the CTX Rover.
With this new invention scientists could travel back in time and study the dinosaurs alive and in their natural habitats. The success of the CTX Rover made the Dino Institute and Chrono-Teck Inc a success overnight. Dr. Marsh commissioned a new state of the art Dino Institute facility built near the old fishing lodge, which was dedicated officially on April 22, 1978.
With this new state of the art facility and the production of more CTX Rovers, Dr. Marsh soon announced that she will now open the doors to the facility to non-scientists, the regular public; because she believes everyone should experience the awe of seeing a dinosaur first hand. Of course, the substantial amount of money to be made off this endeavor should not be dismissed as the driving force behind this decision.
The World Paleontological Society is not thrilled with the announcement. The president, Dr. Vladimur Borontsky, said this type of technology requires years of more thorough testing before ever being open to the public. Dr. Marsh dismisses his comments by saying her staff has tested the rover extensively and they all say the same thing, “it’s fast, it’s a blast, and it’s in the past.”
Dr. Marsh hubris grows and as such the people working with her in the new Dino Institute develop a haughty attitude towards the scientific community and especially the professors and grad students still playing in the dirt at the boneyard trying to uncover dinosaur bones. Dr. Marsh grows tired of the students and their pranks but believes it is beneath her to do anything about it, so the students run free in the town. The students remain in control of the lodge and even the local radio station which has been taken over by two students who call themselves “Digger” and “Bonehead” who play dino-themed music all day long. The Dino Institute remains in Dr. Marsh’s control and as such, a refined place of upstanding decorum and cutting edge scientific discovery.
Further up Highway 498 from the fishing lodge is a gas station run by an older couple named Chester and Hester. All of the new traffic and tourists to the area should have helped their little gas station but they were frustrated because everyone else seemed to be profiting off this except them. Chester and Hester were determined to find ways to increase their profits so they started selling souvenirs and little tacky nick-nacks in their gas station. In a short period of time, the gifts were outselling the gas so they converted the entire service station into a large gift shop called Chester and Hester’s Dinosaur Treasures.
Chester and Hester’s Dinosaur Treasures was a huge success and profits were rising exponentially. The older couple knew that to make more they needed to expand. They took their profits and bought the land across Highway 498 and built a small amusement park, a perfect location to attract passing tourists. Chester and Hester’s DinoRama was born and is still running strong, giving scientists and passing tourists a little break from dinosaur hunting.
Today, the Dino Institute still offers tours to the public that take them back to the Cretaceous period to see those magnificent creatures. The professors and students still believe that studying dinosaur bones and fossil records are vital to our understanding, so they still work and play in the old fishing lodge which is now “restaurantosaurus” and a museum and a visitor’s center and a dormitory. You can visit the dig site and see their work first hand. You can visit the lodge and see the history of the group, their humble beginnings, their first major finds, and their endless pranks on each other.
And now you know the history of Dinoland USA. Next time you go, take the time to explore the area, you’ll find many pieces of evidence of this backstory, you’ll see pranks made by the students, and no doubt you’ll have a great time in this small county off Highway 498.