Dinosaur Park 1960

These two slides were part of the lot of slides I bought a couple weekends back.

The slides were taken in Dinosaur Park, South Dakota in 1960.  My first thought was of the scene from "Pee Wee's Big Adventure".

But those were the Cabazon Dinosaurs in California.

Dinosaur Park was created in 1936 to capitalize on the tourist traffic coming to visit Mount Rushmore.  The dinosaurs were sculpted by Emmet Sullivan, one of the sculptors of Mount Rushmore.  There are actually 5 original dinosaurs and 2 added at a later date.  In addition to the T-Rex and Apatosaurus (Brontosaurus to us old schoolers) shown above, there are an Anatotitan, Stegosaurus and Triceratops (see below in order).

I was curious about these letters on the distant hillside.

Apparently, these are referred to as Mountain Monograms and are put there by local universities and colleges as a display of school pride.  There are quite a few around the country.  These particular letters were put there by the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.