Glendive gaining more local support for Dinosaur Trail

Dinosaurs are beginning to appear in more and more places around Glendive as downtown businesses work with the Glendive Beautification Committee to promote a dinosaur theme.

Twenty-three businesses have already adopted a dinosaur and others are thinking about it, Christie Bury of the Makoshika Dinosaur Museum said. The committee recently received a $5,250 grant from the Horizon Barrier Fund to help in the project.

Three downtown building owners have given permission for a mural depicting scenes with dinosaurs to be put on the walls of their buildings. Two of these will be purchased from professional mural painters and one will be drawn by Dawson County High School students possibly working with Dawson Community College students in a mentorship in painting.

The murals will not be drawn directly on the building walls but will be attached to the walls, Bury explained. This will be more cost effective and make the murals easier to protect from the effects of weathering. One mural has already been chosen and plans are for it to be purchased and in place on the city parking lot facing wall of First National Pawn this spring. The other two murals are planned for a wall of the Bell Street Mall and Robin Robins’ building which houses Osborn Photography.

The committee has also started raising funds for the city parking lot with plans to place dinosaur silhouettes along the 380-foot stretch of fencing at the back of the parking lot. With the dinosaurs ranging in size from 5 to 7 feet in height and 10 to 12 feet in length, approximately 35-38 dinosaurs could be portrayed along the fence.

The committee has raised approximately $2,200 for the city parking lot project. The estimated cost for the dinosaur silhouettes and for repaving the parking lot is expected to be $153,387.

The Makoshika Dinosaur Museum recently received a grant from the Department of Commerce’s Tourist Infrastructure Investment Program to fund a fire suppression system and add to its exhibits but has hit a “wrinkle” in installing the sprinkler system, Bury said, emphasizing, “It’s only a wrinkle.”

The water pipe coming into the museum is a 1-inch pipe while the sprinkler system requires a 4-inch pipe. A 4-inch flange gate valve, a 4-inch back flow preventer and a 4-inch curb stop along with about 50 feet of 4-inch pipe will be needed to complete the project, Steve Bury explained.

While the dinosaur theme is the center of the effort to make Glendive a destination point for tourists, it is not the town’s only asset, he added. With the town’s rich railroad history there is the possibility of developing a railroad museum and the Frontier Gateway Museum is a valuable resource for tourists interested in the history of the West and the pioneers who settled here.

“All it is is attitude,” Christie Bury emphasized. “If we have a positive attitude, things will happen.”

By Cindy Mullet
Ranger-Review Staff Writer

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